Day 28 - Apecchio
OK so i am going to owe a lot of favors for this trip, and the karma meter i have been talking about is now so far in the red that i understand a small committee has been formed some place to try and find the most efficient way that my debt can be repayed and the just order of the universe restored.
Apecchio is a lovely small town about 20 minutes drive West of Urbania on the border of Marche and Toscana,.. the fact that it is pretty wont come as a great shock to anyone... the fact that it was the first time i had managed to lay my eyes on the rolling green hills of tuscany certainly did come as a shock to me ... but im not going to attempt to describe tuscan nhills on the fly in an internet cafe... uhuh... not falling for that one.... go read a book do a net search and come back in a few minutes.
On this day I along with 2 other classmates were fortunate enough to accompany 2 of our teachers to a retaurant tucked away in said tuscan(esque) hills, this was an old house on a dirt track off a drt track off a sidestreet, of course there were no students, in fact we were the only people there, in fact there was never any doubt that we were going to be the only people there.
But as I said surroundings arent important, you know those movies where some guy is sitting down at a table eating and drinking all this excellent food that is really simple but you couldn't possibly contemplate preparing or procuring on your own and the women at the table are beautiful with long dark curly hair, the kind of hair that looks like its on its way to some kind of exhibition or is protected by a national trust somewhere, postcard hair, travelogue hair, and she smiles and is fascinated by the fact that you live in this country called Australia because it is so far away and how amazing and exotic it sounds... so you pause and look around, rolling hills, great food, beautiful people and think to yourself... you would rather be trying to find a free carpark spot in chadstone????
Monia, who has been my teacher for the 4 week course and the vivacious Manu dragged fellow classmate and all american rockstar type Mehdy and my housemate and all american top bloke Ben away from quiet Urbania and off to Apecchio for an afternoon of wine, women and song... sure it was all nice and above board, the owner let us loose on his cd collection so a bit of dancing to some really daggy songs including a selection of WHAM classics, he even joined in and spun the girls around a little. The food,.. OK glad to spend some time there... antipasto simple bruscete tomato, cheese, spinach, prosciuto, flat bread with a very salty soft cheese filling,... i didnt dare ask if the cheese was greek. Pasta the varieties always have bizarre names here its not just spaghetti or tagliatelle ... but as i dont recall the technical descriptions subclass and species i will translate it into lygon street lingo we all understand... tortellini woth a very light gorgonzola and funghi sauce, a spaghetti with a basic tomato and basil sauce,.. nothing basic about the taste and some kind of ravioli, spinach and pumpkin with a meat filling pine nuts and more baby basil. Wines, more local red, tasted like a chianti, was absolutely fabulous,.. i know i poo pood chianti back home,.. shoot me if i do so again.. and we rounded it all off with lashings of cherry wine, which is just a knockout... several helpings of a limoncello cream liquour and even yes some more grappa.
But back to action, so there i was in the proverbial tuscan villa spinning my beautiful teacher monia around to the dulcid tones of ''last christmas'' and its not even july!!! sacrilige!!!! i occasionally tear my eyes off her and sneak a glance through a window,.. not a grand window with a terrace just your standard window as you would find in any suburban house back home so abundant is the beauty around here that there is absolutely no reason to make a song and dance about the view.
Again that recuring theme of beauty so heavy so thick that you feel it drag against your throat as you try and absotb it, my mind was constantly on remember this moment mode, and ive got a backlog of memories i am still trying to process. Here is just a sample of them
- sitting in the right hand side of a car driven by somebody you would normally be ogling on a magazine cover
- singing along to italian rock songs and mistranslating phrases to her delight
- translating english songs on the fly and impressing her with your ability to see things
- an old mill in a field of poppies
- streetsigns written in a font so small you have to stop get out of the car and walk up to them to read them
- a dog guarding the casa we were to lunch at bigger than some ponies i have seen and a bark that would make a baritone blush
- walking through the family living room in order to get to the restaurant complete with nonno asleep in the arm chair
- learning how to swear in italian like a local
- testing it out on the owner of the place who corrects your grammar and pours you another wine
- staring at her for so long you think the muscles surrounding your eye will forget how to move
- actually liking wham songs
yes, the beautiful, the perverse the timeless the dog, oh my god the dog.
Thursday, May 29, 2003
Friday, May 23, 2003
Later that evening - may 17 2003
Tonight several of us dined at the local osteria la cuco, this is a tiny place big enough to fit bench tables along 2 side walls allowing just enough space for the waitress to serve the tables without bumping into you too often. No menu of course just a rapidly delivered series of dishes in no particular order. Being a small not tourist infested town we sat at table which seats about 10, were joined by a young couple from an adjoining town and had another 4 people join the other end of the table.
What did w you eat what did you eat!!! I haer you cry,.. well,.. we didnt go absolutely nuts much to my disappointment,.. we had to find a balance that people were prepared to pay for,.. so we kep it to a good range of anitpasti and 2 pasta dishes oh and desserts and wines and grappa and some stuff that noone is sure about.
Antipasti,.. several salami and pecorino cheese types,.. no biggy around here, but the smaller salami are nice and meaty not too fatty,.. a kind of cold almost canelloni type crepe filled with a mince of mozarella basil and something which was translated to me as capsicum but was something i couldnt quite place,.. a beautiful orange colour,.. some simple bruschetta with (i was assured) truffle oil, although i could not taste or smell any myself (the area around urbania is famous for truffles,.. tartufi,.. but its not quite the season for it yet).
Pasta we had some ravioli containing a specific grade of basil that they grow around here just for stuffing pasta,.. very subtle and cobined with the olive oil that i think i have described earlier made for an intoxicating mix of flavours,.. the pasta itself contained something which we couldnt agree on,.. almost had a pumpkin like aroma to it, slithers of almonds and maybe a bit too much butter dressed it all. I never caught the name of the second pasta dish,.. but these were big plump ravioli, kind of like agnelloti with procini and other wild mushrooms and some kind of meat, topped with a very light drizzle of a cream based sauce.
Drinkies? Several bottles of the rosso connero that everyone washes things down with around here,.. i must say that i am a lot more impressed with the italian wines than i thought i would be, chianti and tosso connero go down a treat and at about 3 or 4 euro a bottle at the supermarket or bottle shop its better value than back home. We also had some god awful grappa which had a wheaty tate to it,.. it was a scuro and really should have trusted my nose and skipped it... but the drinking experience was saved with a nice bottle of vin santo which i described as a noble reisling not because it is a noble reisling.. it certainly isnt, but it reminds me of a swet lighter sherry,.. the locals soak biscotti in vin santo... why i asked as i downed another glass,.. also had some beautfully fragrant and warming cherry wine and a selection of the delci which was nice but the slices were so small it became rather hard to tell one from another.
At 30 euro a head not a cheap night but a pretty unique experience.
Tonight several of us dined at the local osteria la cuco, this is a tiny place big enough to fit bench tables along 2 side walls allowing just enough space for the waitress to serve the tables without bumping into you too often. No menu of course just a rapidly delivered series of dishes in no particular order. Being a small not tourist infested town we sat at table which seats about 10, were joined by a young couple from an adjoining town and had another 4 people join the other end of the table.
What did w you eat what did you eat!!! I haer you cry,.. well,.. we didnt go absolutely nuts much to my disappointment,.. we had to find a balance that people were prepared to pay for,.. so we kep it to a good range of anitpasti and 2 pasta dishes oh and desserts and wines and grappa and some stuff that noone is sure about.
Antipasti,.. several salami and pecorino cheese types,.. no biggy around here, but the smaller salami are nice and meaty not too fatty,.. a kind of cold almost canelloni type crepe filled with a mince of mozarella basil and something which was translated to me as capsicum but was something i couldnt quite place,.. a beautiful orange colour,.. some simple bruschetta with (i was assured) truffle oil, although i could not taste or smell any myself (the area around urbania is famous for truffles,.. tartufi,.. but its not quite the season for it yet).
Pasta we had some ravioli containing a specific grade of basil that they grow around here just for stuffing pasta,.. very subtle and cobined with the olive oil that i think i have described earlier made for an intoxicating mix of flavours,.. the pasta itself contained something which we couldnt agree on,.. almost had a pumpkin like aroma to it, slithers of almonds and maybe a bit too much butter dressed it all. I never caught the name of the second pasta dish,.. but these were big plump ravioli, kind of like agnelloti with procini and other wild mushrooms and some kind of meat, topped with a very light drizzle of a cream based sauce.
Drinkies? Several bottles of the rosso connero that everyone washes things down with around here,.. i must say that i am a lot more impressed with the italian wines than i thought i would be, chianti and tosso connero go down a treat and at about 3 or 4 euro a bottle at the supermarket or bottle shop its better value than back home. We also had some god awful grappa which had a wheaty tate to it,.. it was a scuro and really should have trusted my nose and skipped it... but the drinking experience was saved with a nice bottle of vin santo which i described as a noble reisling not because it is a noble reisling.. it certainly isnt, but it reminds me of a swet lighter sherry,.. the locals soak biscotti in vin santo... why i asked as i downed another glass,.. also had some beautfully fragrant and warming cherry wine and a selection of the delci which was nice but the slices were so small it became rather hard to tell one from another.
At 30 euro a head not a cheap night but a pretty unique experience.
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Day 20 - May 19 2003 - inseperabile and vodka
Every monday night the school organises a film screening, last week it was the elephant man which i watched just to listen to the dubbing ... this week was the film inseperable with jeremy irons... this is a painful film made even more so by the painful and hard o follow dialogue (italiano of course), not really interested in talking about the film.
Howevr,.. after,.. dopo,.. the film,.. we ventured to ''bar centrale'' .. now bar centrale is one of the 2 bars that face the main piazza in urbania,.. and although it has outdoor seating and is open late we foreigners tend to frequent it much less than the caffe del teatro just across the street... well on this fresh urbanese night we changed this pattern and stormed the place. Despite what you may think, Italians actually don't drink too much, and the raggazi certainly don't go out for a night of boozing as is the norm back home... This point was made clear to us who leaning at the bar ordered our third beer in the space of about 30 minutes ..
Me: un altro per favore,.. pushing the glass across the bar.
her: un altro? brief look of astonishment crossing her face.
me: si... un... altro... she looks at her watch and reaches for the glass
oh but we hadn't finished, but we were classy... averna, amaretto, campari and some weird american cocktails that are all the rage over there... and then chris asks about the vodka... Vodka, like most spirits is cheap here,.. a litre of vodka con linone is about 7 euro,.. and its freezable and quite drinkable, limoncello and the like are kind of laughed at but still go down a treat... but like most places the vodka isnt stored in the freezer,.. in fact on the back of most vodka bottles i have seen it says dont put this in the freezer,.. a pox on ye who dont freeze thy vodka i say!
The owner of bar centrale Gianni,.. a man i knew i would like as he reminded me muchly of all round good buddy savvas back home, looked at me when i enquired re the vodka he produced not only ice cold vodka but tres funky little oce cold glasses to drink the stuff from... marvellous, i think he was as happy about it as i was.... further details become blurry.
Oh,.. i had my sunglasses on all night... ah the looks i got from the locals, priceless.
Every monday night the school organises a film screening, last week it was the elephant man which i watched just to listen to the dubbing ... this week was the film inseperable with jeremy irons... this is a painful film made even more so by the painful and hard o follow dialogue (italiano of course), not really interested in talking about the film.
Howevr,.. after,.. dopo,.. the film,.. we ventured to ''bar centrale'' .. now bar centrale is one of the 2 bars that face the main piazza in urbania,.. and although it has outdoor seating and is open late we foreigners tend to frequent it much less than the caffe del teatro just across the street... well on this fresh urbanese night we changed this pattern and stormed the place. Despite what you may think, Italians actually don't drink too much, and the raggazi certainly don't go out for a night of boozing as is the norm back home... This point was made clear to us who leaning at the bar ordered our third beer in the space of about 30 minutes ..
Me: un altro per favore,.. pushing the glass across the bar.
her: un altro? brief look of astonishment crossing her face.
me: si... un... altro... she looks at her watch and reaches for the glass
oh but we hadn't finished, but we were classy... averna, amaretto, campari and some weird american cocktails that are all the rage over there... and then chris asks about the vodka... Vodka, like most spirits is cheap here,.. a litre of vodka con linone is about 7 euro,.. and its freezable and quite drinkable, limoncello and the like are kind of laughed at but still go down a treat... but like most places the vodka isnt stored in the freezer,.. in fact on the back of most vodka bottles i have seen it says dont put this in the freezer,.. a pox on ye who dont freeze thy vodka i say!
The owner of bar centrale Gianni,.. a man i knew i would like as he reminded me muchly of all round good buddy savvas back home, looked at me when i enquired re the vodka he produced not only ice cold vodka but tres funky little oce cold glasses to drink the stuff from... marvellous, i think he was as happy about it as i was.... further details become blurry.
Oh,.. i had my sunglasses on all night... ah the looks i got from the locals, priceless.
Saturday, May 17, 2003
Day 18 - may 17 2003 - Random notes and musings
In rome, watched an impromptu latin jaz ensemble perform at a piazza along side the tiber in trastevere, they played for an hour on the steps of a fountain, there were at least 15 of them, just the old classics bt each had their go at a solo which was special... and no hat being passed around either... they were probably famous
did i ask if anybody knew if russel crowe was in rome with his new bride around may 1? i am sure i saw him at a table in a small osteria in trastevere,.. i looked under the tabel for a slab of VB but didnt spot one, which is the only reason i am in doubt it was him.
In rome young guys and girls were wearing these odd looking shirts,.. sort of tie dyed but mor elike thay had been used to do the painting, everywhere.
All girls in italia use surgical implements to put their jeans on, the expression <> is greeted with positivity... in fact it is sought after.. and although they are into the tight jeans .. god bless their cotton socks... unfortunately this passion for clothing doesnt always extend to the undergarments they wear with these jeans... the bog catcher is very much in vogue
I need a haircut
Ive managed to avoid familiarising myself with the sweets at the cafes and bars so far,.. doing well,.. have lost quite a bit of wait and im still recovering from the walk to Peglio which i have graphically documented in another post... although i have recovered to the point where i am now contenplating doing it again.
Still cant get over the beauty of the coffee here,.. going rate for an expresso in urbania is 80 euro cents, 85 for a machiatto and 1.05 or 1.10 for a cappuci. Purchased a 4 cup stove top espresso makre the other day, typical italian aluminium model... 3 euro, lavaza crema e gusto same packs we get back home is around 1.90 euro.
Also getting stuck into the sicilian red )we call them blood) oranges... 1 litre is about 1.80 which isnt ridiculously cheaper than back home... but i love the stuff.
I wrote my first italian poem today for class, currently with my delectable teacher Monia, will no doubt post it here when i get it back... lots of cliches and lots of really amateur images,.. but hey at least i hav an excuse... everything rhymes in italian as well which can be annoying but you end up with some long words when speaking in 3rd person passato.
The sky i blue, unphotographable blue, i thought i knew what blue was, turns out i had no fucking idea.
everyone smokes, my next door neighbours dog smokes, everyone smokes.
You cant tell how old the woemn are around here,.. until its too late... not that i have been in such a position... but my teahcer looks maybe 25, shes actually 34, a girl in the cafe nearby looks about 30, shes actually 40, a women we spoke to at the bar last night looked about 32, she was 48,.. sofia loren has had no plastic surgery looks hotter than most of th scrags walking around chapel street and was born when my grandmother was just a kid
On that note my grandmother is doing fine and waiting for me in Ampelokipi, hang in there granny, got hours of video tape i need to fill with your memories.
Learning the lingua di strada is a lot more fun than learning how to conjugate verbs. Many words that relate to the act of picking up are based on the entire fishing experience... lovely, why mince words.
The italian word for an at sign is a 'chioccola'' which is a little snail... how cute... i picture all these hardass finance dealers and shit swaping email address...... << si mio email indrizzo e... hardass - little snail - your mamas house dot com dot italia >>>
In rome, watched an impromptu latin jaz ensemble perform at a piazza along side the tiber in trastevere, they played for an hour on the steps of a fountain, there were at least 15 of them, just the old classics bt each had their go at a solo which was special... and no hat being passed around either... they were probably famous
did i ask if anybody knew if russel crowe was in rome with his new bride around may 1? i am sure i saw him at a table in a small osteria in trastevere,.. i looked under the tabel for a slab of VB but didnt spot one, which is the only reason i am in doubt it was him.
In rome young guys and girls were wearing these odd looking shirts,.. sort of tie dyed but mor elike thay had been used to do the painting, everywhere.
All girls in italia use surgical implements to put their jeans on, the expression <
I need a haircut
Ive managed to avoid familiarising myself with the sweets at the cafes and bars so far,.. doing well,.. have lost quite a bit of wait and im still recovering from the walk to Peglio which i have graphically documented in another post... although i have recovered to the point where i am now contenplating doing it again.
Still cant get over the beauty of the coffee here,.. going rate for an expresso in urbania is 80 euro cents, 85 for a machiatto and 1.05 or 1.10 for a cappuci. Purchased a 4 cup stove top espresso makre the other day, typical italian aluminium model... 3 euro, lavaza crema e gusto same packs we get back home is around 1.90 euro.
Also getting stuck into the sicilian red )we call them blood) oranges... 1 litre is about 1.80 which isnt ridiculously cheaper than back home... but i love the stuff.
I wrote my first italian poem today for class, currently with my delectable teacher Monia, will no doubt post it here when i get it back... lots of cliches and lots of really amateur images,.. but hey at least i hav an excuse... everything rhymes in italian as well which can be annoying but you end up with some long words when speaking in 3rd person passato.
The sky i blue, unphotographable blue, i thought i knew what blue was, turns out i had no fucking idea.
everyone smokes, my next door neighbours dog smokes, everyone smokes.
You cant tell how old the woemn are around here,.. until its too late... not that i have been in such a position... but my teahcer looks maybe 25, shes actually 34, a girl in the cafe nearby looks about 30, shes actually 40, a women we spoke to at the bar last night looked about 32, she was 48,.. sofia loren has had no plastic surgery looks hotter than most of th scrags walking around chapel street and was born when my grandmother was just a kid
On that note my grandmother is doing fine and waiting for me in Ampelokipi, hang in there granny, got hours of video tape i need to fill with your memories.
Learning the lingua di strada is a lot more fun than learning how to conjugate verbs. Many words that relate to the act of picking up are based on the entire fishing experience... lovely, why mince words.
The italian word for an at sign is a 'chioccola'' which is a little snail... how cute... i picture all these hardass finance dealers and shit swaping email address...... << si mio email indrizzo e... hardass - little snail - your mamas house dot com dot italia >>>
Friday, May 16, 2003
Day 15 - May 14 2003 - Forza Juve
Urbania is very much a Juventus town, kids wander around in their black and white striped shirts quite often, in fact the region of marche in which urbania finds itself is the only region that doesnt have a team in the italian first division, hasnt had one for some time but they do have some hjope that Ancona which is in seria b will get promoted this year.
Wednesday night was a big night for Juve tifosi, the second leg of the semi final against the fierce Real Madrid. Real had won the first leg 2-1 in spain and the return leg in Torino ha dbeen built up to incredible heights by the local pres and fans. AC Milan had qualified for the final the night before and so Juve were expected to rise to the occasion and make it an all Italian affair for the final in Manchester in a few weeks
But of course this isnt a sports column, as i will now prove... Juve won 3-1, rather triumphantly with 2 splendid goals and parried real's last ditch efforts to make it rhough to the final, forza Juve.
This piece is about getting to live one of those fairy tale evenings for any soccer fan, sitting with the fans in a small town which totally comes toa standstill for big games. We watched the game from one of those bars that are so small nobody knows their name,.. i asked the owner and even he wasnt 100% sure, but the concept of the big screen isnt alien to these guys so we sat or leaned in my case and watched the game unfold, the fans were hopeful but not arrogantly so... Real Madrid is a real powerhouse of a team and coming from behind was a tall order.
One of the great things about Football in Italy is that everyone talks about, including the chicks, and on a big night like this the crowd is mixed, guys girls, husbands wives kids, all together screaming, throwing their hands in the air.
Spirits were lifted early when froggy star Treseuget scored for Juve, an opportunistic but well taken poke past the keeper, the crowd went as they say in the classics quite ape shit, everyone leapt up and hugged anything, beers hit the floor there was even tears,.. and this was only the 10 minute mark. The excitement picked up with the 2nd and 3rd goals to the point where nobody seemed to mind that zizou managed to sneak out a bit of his own patented magic to keep the scoreline respectable for the spaniards.
Following the game we walked around the streets of Urbania waiting for the sreams of cars and vespas to descend on the city, horns blaring flags waving, we watched them stream down via Roma (every town has a via roma) and around the town square, people hung from windows clapping, very much looking forward to the final.
Post game we caught up with Danilo, the PR guy from the italian school, mad juve supporter, he tod us how to get to one of the small underground pubs in urbania ... what a find... its called the ''new inn'' which isnt really funny until you realise that it is actually in the basement of a 500 year old building... Danilo broke open a bottle of champagne, and the bar owner also shouted us a bottle of a sweet white which was great because it was feree... wonderful little place to which we will return to watch the final.
Urbania is very much a Juventus town, kids wander around in their black and white striped shirts quite often, in fact the region of marche in which urbania finds itself is the only region that doesnt have a team in the italian first division, hasnt had one for some time but they do have some hjope that Ancona which is in seria b will get promoted this year.
Wednesday night was a big night for Juve tifosi, the second leg of the semi final against the fierce Real Madrid. Real had won the first leg 2-1 in spain and the return leg in Torino ha dbeen built up to incredible heights by the local pres and fans. AC Milan had qualified for the final the night before and so Juve were expected to rise to the occasion and make it an all Italian affair for the final in Manchester in a few weeks
But of course this isnt a sports column, as i will now prove... Juve won 3-1, rather triumphantly with 2 splendid goals and parried real's last ditch efforts to make it rhough to the final, forza Juve.
This piece is about getting to live one of those fairy tale evenings for any soccer fan, sitting with the fans in a small town which totally comes toa standstill for big games. We watched the game from one of those bars that are so small nobody knows their name,.. i asked the owner and even he wasnt 100% sure, but the concept of the big screen isnt alien to these guys so we sat or leaned in my case and watched the game unfold, the fans were hopeful but not arrogantly so... Real Madrid is a real powerhouse of a team and coming from behind was a tall order.
One of the great things about Football in Italy is that everyone talks about, including the chicks, and on a big night like this the crowd is mixed, guys girls, husbands wives kids, all together screaming, throwing their hands in the air.
Spirits were lifted early when froggy star Treseuget scored for Juve, an opportunistic but well taken poke past the keeper, the crowd went as they say in the classics quite ape shit, everyone leapt up and hugged anything, beers hit the floor there was even tears,.. and this was only the 10 minute mark. The excitement picked up with the 2nd and 3rd goals to the point where nobody seemed to mind that zizou managed to sneak out a bit of his own patented magic to keep the scoreline respectable for the spaniards.
Following the game we walked around the streets of Urbania waiting for the sreams of cars and vespas to descend on the city, horns blaring flags waving, we watched them stream down via Roma (every town has a via roma) and around the town square, people hung from windows clapping, very much looking forward to the final.
Post game we caught up with Danilo, the PR guy from the italian school, mad juve supporter, he tod us how to get to one of the small underground pubs in urbania ... what a find... its called the ''new inn'' which isnt really funny until you realise that it is actually in the basement of a 500 year old building... Danilo broke open a bottle of champagne, and the bar owner also shouted us a bottle of a sweet white which was great because it was feree... wonderful little place to which we will return to watch the final.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Day 13 - May 12 2003 - Peglio - i think i can i think i can
In class in the morning chris heard jan, one half of the elderly dutch couple say
''Ieri pomeriggio sono andata a peglio a piedi'', which I translated as ''yesterday afternoon i went to Peglio on foot'' well by the end of this story you too will know how important those little filler words are and that Jan did not say to peglio but he said in Peglio as the journey to peglio from urbania on foot is only done by the insane... lock me up sister.
From the terrace of my casa rumorosa we can see a castle perched atop a nearby mount, looks very impressive and if the wind is blowing right you can actually hear its bells a second or so after the bells from urbania. A breathataking structure which would have made it abundantly clear that the people that inhabited this town kind of liked to be left alone and had some pretty good technology and money backing up this desire.
I left for peglio with a small bottle of water, a book, my camera stowed nicely in my daypack, the first part of the journey went swimmingly... a wrong turn started things off.. well not technically a wrong turn just a hope that it would connect with the road to peglio... a false hope.. But not even the wrong turn dampened my spirits it gave me the chance to walk through a poppy field and say hello to some old ladies who were very surprised to see me walk past them, and not quite as surprised to see me return.
Finally on the real road to peglio the existance of a bike track completely seperate to the road made me think that yes this is a well thought out walking track and that many tourists and locals make this journey regularly and it would be pretty and scenic and local girls with arms full or local produce would greet me along the way... bzzt
about 1 km along this scenic pavement the road started to climb,.. not so bad i thought,.. i mean it's got to climb... it's not too hot and the climb and the resulting view is the reason i am here,.. i have my health happiness and a hunger for adventure..yadda yadda yadda
Another kilometre down the track, the road was still climbing and the tree canopy was becoming sparse, my water bottle half empty and the sign i just passed said winding roads for 3 kilometres. Of course the nice bike path had stopped and i was walking on the shoulder of the road with most drivers giving me a what the hell are you doing look with one of them laughing as he shook his head.
I paused after walking uphill at a fairly good pace for an hour, the views were getting better all the time but it wa hard going, i had walked for about 2 hours, taking out the efect of the wrong turn means i should be just about there,.. but i wasnt, as it turns out the 3 kilomeeteres i was told was as the crow flies, the distamce was closer to 5 kms, i didntt know this at the time. )remind me not to seek a carer as a suspense writer)
A further hour of walking uphill and afternoon sunshine and i reached the outskirts of Peglio, it was just the idea that ''i have come this far...'' that kept me going. Thew view from the top .. yeah it was good,.. but not that much better from the view from the nearly at the top... beautifull patterns of different fields, streams, mountain mists blowing across the valley and finally a cool breeze flowing across the top of the mount that i had scaled.
Peglio being a small town everything commercial was closed by this time,.. its 3 shops not available to offer me refreshment but a fountain near the bus shelter appeared to give me a chance to refill my bottle and cooll down. Certain rumblings in my stomach were nothing to worry about it was just the exercise... i had a good lunch of bread tomato tuna and ... ahh.... beans... lots of beans... hmmm
With the rumblings growing stronger i searched the town for an approriate receptacle for my ... post lunch offerings... niente, i tried speaking to two old ladies who sat near the church.. the church goddamit but nieither of them could help out.. one used the word purtruppo which i took as her saying sorry but i cant help you.. one pointed towards a bush... a small bush mind you... and laughed... i took my leave...
A large hotel loomed on the horizon,.. it meant climbing a bit further uphill,.. but hey it's a hotel, i can even see a pool dammit i can probably have a shower and have those local damsels feed me those grapes they had been peeling for the past hour. Well the size of the carpark made me believe that this is a popular spot,.. but not at the moment... the place was fenced tight and looked like it was waiting for the high season, it actually looked like the whole hotel existed somewhere else and this wa a backup copy.
With my rumblings keeping me company i began my descent, obviously much swifter than the ascent, i passed places i hadn't noticed in my approach to Peglio, a beautiful lush green field a small villa clinging to the side of the mountain, the sign indicating deer over the next few kilometres is obviously there just to keep the tourists hoping.
The rumblings had turned to cramps, but urbania was now visible my oohs and ahhs were a combination of breathtaking vistas and ass clenching fear.. i walked past that same poppy field this time wishing it wa a grove of bushes, walked under the sign welcoming you to urbania one final clench and double timed it back to casa rumorosa.
Flatmate Ben couldnt quite read the expression on my face as i approached but he has gotten to know me well enough to open the doors for me and laugh ... my shirt and jeans soaked through with perspiration, my posterior entrance surviving the ordeal and the camera in my bag capturing the moments that i will tell more often... i think.
In class in the morning chris heard jan, one half of the elderly dutch couple say
''Ieri pomeriggio sono andata a peglio a piedi'', which I translated as ''yesterday afternoon i went to Peglio on foot'' well by the end of this story you too will know how important those little filler words are and that Jan did not say to peglio but he said in Peglio as the journey to peglio from urbania on foot is only done by the insane... lock me up sister.
From the terrace of my casa rumorosa we can see a castle perched atop a nearby mount, looks very impressive and if the wind is blowing right you can actually hear its bells a second or so after the bells from urbania. A breathataking structure which would have made it abundantly clear that the people that inhabited this town kind of liked to be left alone and had some pretty good technology and money backing up this desire.
I left for peglio with a small bottle of water, a book, my camera stowed nicely in my daypack, the first part of the journey went swimmingly... a wrong turn started things off.. well not technically a wrong turn just a hope that it would connect with the road to peglio... a false hope.. But not even the wrong turn dampened my spirits it gave me the chance to walk through a poppy field and say hello to some old ladies who were very surprised to see me walk past them, and not quite as surprised to see me return.
Finally on the real road to peglio the existance of a bike track completely seperate to the road made me think that yes this is a well thought out walking track and that many tourists and locals make this journey regularly and it would be pretty and scenic and local girls with arms full or local produce would greet me along the way... bzzt
about 1 km along this scenic pavement the road started to climb,.. not so bad i thought,.. i mean it's got to climb... it's not too hot and the climb and the resulting view is the reason i am here,.. i have my health happiness and a hunger for adventure..yadda yadda yadda
Another kilometre down the track, the road was still climbing and the tree canopy was becoming sparse, my water bottle half empty and the sign i just passed said winding roads for 3 kilometres. Of course the nice bike path had stopped and i was walking on the shoulder of the road with most drivers giving me a what the hell are you doing look with one of them laughing as he shook his head.
I paused after walking uphill at a fairly good pace for an hour, the views were getting better all the time but it wa hard going, i had walked for about 2 hours, taking out the efect of the wrong turn means i should be just about there,.. but i wasnt, as it turns out the 3 kilomeeteres i was told was as the crow flies, the distamce was closer to 5 kms, i didntt know this at the time. )remind me not to seek a carer as a suspense writer)
A further hour of walking uphill and afternoon sunshine and i reached the outskirts of Peglio, it was just the idea that ''i have come this far...'' that kept me going. Thew view from the top .. yeah it was good,.. but not that much better from the view from the nearly at the top... beautifull patterns of different fields, streams, mountain mists blowing across the valley and finally a cool breeze flowing across the top of the mount that i had scaled.
Peglio being a small town everything commercial was closed by this time,.. its 3 shops not available to offer me refreshment but a fountain near the bus shelter appeared to give me a chance to refill my bottle and cooll down. Certain rumblings in my stomach were nothing to worry about it was just the exercise... i had a good lunch of bread tomato tuna and ... ahh.... beans... lots of beans... hmmm
With the rumblings growing stronger i searched the town for an approriate receptacle for my ... post lunch offerings... niente, i tried speaking to two old ladies who sat near the church.. the church goddamit but nieither of them could help out.. one used the word purtruppo which i took as her saying sorry but i cant help you.. one pointed towards a bush... a small bush mind you... and laughed... i took my leave...
A large hotel loomed on the horizon,.. it meant climbing a bit further uphill,.. but hey it's a hotel, i can even see a pool dammit i can probably have a shower and have those local damsels feed me those grapes they had been peeling for the past hour. Well the size of the carpark made me believe that this is a popular spot,.. but not at the moment... the place was fenced tight and looked like it was waiting for the high season, it actually looked like the whole hotel existed somewhere else and this wa a backup copy.
With my rumblings keeping me company i began my descent, obviously much swifter than the ascent, i passed places i hadn't noticed in my approach to Peglio, a beautiful lush green field a small villa clinging to the side of the mountain, the sign indicating deer over the next few kilometres is obviously there just to keep the tourists hoping.
The rumblings had turned to cramps, but urbania was now visible my oohs and ahhs were a combination of breathtaking vistas and ass clenching fear.. i walked past that same poppy field this time wishing it wa a grove of bushes, walked under the sign welcoming you to urbania one final clench and double timed it back to casa rumorosa.
Flatmate Ben couldnt quite read the expression on my face as i approached but he has gotten to know me well enough to open the doors for me and laugh ... my shirt and jeans soaked through with perspiration, my posterior entrance surviving the ordeal and the camera in my bag capturing the moments that i will tell more often... i think.
Day 9, 10 & 11 Siestamatic
Getting into the morning equals school - afternoon equals rest routine. God bless these crazy Europeans and the afternoon siesta, why the heck should people do anything between 12:30 and 3:00 anyway? What could you do during that time that cant wait until 3:30 or the next day, may it live forever I say.
I am having to structure complete sentences now in Italian, this is challenging, i told my teacher today that my Italian is like some dangerous wall,.. i have a lot of bricks and it looks impressive,.. but there is no mortar holding the thing together so if somebody sits on it or interacts with it in any way it will fall on top of them crushing everyone in its path. I am hoping that will change by the end of next week,.. I have certainly come a long way in the pat 4 days, just need to speak more and make as many mistakes as possible but the class structures arent quite right just yet, early days.
Friday evening we returned to what is becoming a personal favourite in Urbania, the enoteca Vin Italy for several bottles of the local plonk, three reds, going to make notes of what we are drinking next time as the range is enormous but the quality has all been of a standard higher than expected. We followed this up with a trip to a local pizzeria, wasn't very adventurous this time as i just had to get some food into me.. one of the group ordersed ''faro'' which none of .. the waitress included, were totally clear on... turned out to be some kind of wheat pasta, riche shaped but a bland grey colour,.. i can half remember something similar in greek but have probably blocked it out of my mind, any italian speakers who want to help out please do so.
Later the group returned to another local bar, one of those hole in the wall type places that only locals seem to go to...there were some great photos of the town squares and typical urbanian scenes on the wall which nobody but me seemed interested in speaking to. Mehdy, one of the students in my class had befriended a local gent who goes by the name of Bardo, yes alarm bells did ring for me too.
As always the young english speakers gather together on these things so the inner circle of the under 30 english speakers is 4 americans, Mehdy, Jessica, Jennifer and Ben and another Melbourne boy Brian who for good reason goes by the name of Stefano in italia. The youngsters occasionally allow me to tag along and try not to make it too obvious that i dont quite fit the young and beautiful criteria... i pretend to be appreciative and not aware of this... it's a balance that matches the most intricate that mama nature has tossed up from the hellfire.
They are an interesting bunch of guys to be honest, which is a pleasant surprise, my roomate Ben is an all round great guy, but its the southern belle jessica that has captured my imagination, she just makes me feel warm... i mean all over warm not specific body part warm, not that she is difficult on the eyes, on the contrary but there is a fire in her that i cant quite put my proverbial finger on... unfortunately she seems about as interested in me as... well as something that doesnt have a lot of interest,.. like that analogy you know the one, the really good one that always slips your mind when you are trying to remember it.
The posse kicked on to Urbino to hang out in one of the local bars, a great time was had by all,.. One of Bardo's buddies managed to roll his car on the return leg from Urbino, he apparently wasnt quite drunk enough to drive as fast as he was... nobody was hurt... turns out that Bardo is one of the Albanese that smother this part of europe, not that theres anything wrong with that,.. im no racist, some of my best friends are Albanian... actually no they arent... none of my friends are Albanian, this is probably because albanians would stab you for your dandruff, but you do some crazy stuff when you are on holiday.
Oh this didn't happen today but before i forget,.. there's a swedish girl who started class today,.. who looks uncannily like the bitch from ipswich Pauline Hanson,... must acquire photo soon.
Getting into the morning equals school - afternoon equals rest routine. God bless these crazy Europeans and the afternoon siesta, why the heck should people do anything between 12:30 and 3:00 anyway? What could you do during that time that cant wait until 3:30 or the next day, may it live forever I say.
I am having to structure complete sentences now in Italian, this is challenging, i told my teacher today that my Italian is like some dangerous wall,.. i have a lot of bricks and it looks impressive,.. but there is no mortar holding the thing together so if somebody sits on it or interacts with it in any way it will fall on top of them crushing everyone in its path. I am hoping that will change by the end of next week,.. I have certainly come a long way in the pat 4 days, just need to speak more and make as many mistakes as possible but the class structures arent quite right just yet, early days.
Friday evening we returned to what is becoming a personal favourite in Urbania, the enoteca Vin Italy for several bottles of the local plonk, three reds, going to make notes of what we are drinking next time as the range is enormous but the quality has all been of a standard higher than expected. We followed this up with a trip to a local pizzeria, wasn't very adventurous this time as i just had to get some food into me.. one of the group ordersed ''faro'' which none of .. the waitress included, were totally clear on... turned out to be some kind of wheat pasta, riche shaped but a bland grey colour,.. i can half remember something similar in greek but have probably blocked it out of my mind, any italian speakers who want to help out please do so.
Later the group returned to another local bar, one of those hole in the wall type places that only locals seem to go to...there were some great photos of the town squares and typical urbanian scenes on the wall which nobody but me seemed interested in speaking to. Mehdy, one of the students in my class had befriended a local gent who goes by the name of Bardo, yes alarm bells did ring for me too.
As always the young english speakers gather together on these things so the inner circle of the under 30 english speakers is 4 americans, Mehdy, Jessica, Jennifer and Ben and another Melbourne boy Brian who for good reason goes by the name of Stefano in italia. The youngsters occasionally allow me to tag along and try not to make it too obvious that i dont quite fit the young and beautiful criteria... i pretend to be appreciative and not aware of this... it's a balance that matches the most intricate that mama nature has tossed up from the hellfire.
They are an interesting bunch of guys to be honest, which is a pleasant surprise, my roomate Ben is an all round great guy, but its the southern belle jessica that has captured my imagination, she just makes me feel warm... i mean all over warm not specific body part warm, not that she is difficult on the eyes, on the contrary but there is a fire in her that i cant quite put my proverbial finger on... unfortunately she seems about as interested in me as... well as something that doesnt have a lot of interest,.. like that analogy you know the one, the really good one that always slips your mind when you are trying to remember it.
The posse kicked on to Urbino to hang out in one of the local bars, a great time was had by all,.. One of Bardo's buddies managed to roll his car on the return leg from Urbino, he apparently wasnt quite drunk enough to drive as fast as he was... nobody was hurt... turns out that Bardo is one of the Albanese that smother this part of europe, not that theres anything wrong with that,.. im no racist, some of my best friends are Albanian... actually no they arent... none of my friends are Albanian, this is probably because albanians would stab you for your dandruff, but you do some crazy stuff when you are on holiday.
Oh this didn't happen today but before i forget,.. there's a swedish girl who started class today,.. who looks uncannily like the bitch from ipswich Pauline Hanson,... must acquire photo soon.
Monday, May 12, 2003
Day 12 - Ravenna
Ravenna is most famous for its mosaics, and although many italian cities make that claim there is some pretty impressive stuff here... but... for me.. I'm not really into going into some massive monument to see a whole heap of intricately constructed objects places so far from you that you cant appreciate their intricasy or the efforts of the craftsmen. One of the new sites is the Domus dei tappeti di pietro, which was a site unearthed during a mundane demolition, this exposed roughly 50x20m of beautiful mosaic work including some murals, mix of greek and roman influences but the sheer geometry of it is stupfying, if you are going to Ravenna in the next few months be sure to check it out... it's not on the tourist maps as yet as it only opened a few months ago... everything else is churches.
The city being near the coast is flat and easy to get around, its paved streets have a smooth section in the centre which i quickly realised... mi scusa signora,.. is for people riding bikes... it was only after 5 hours of walking around that we discovered that there were bikes for tourists available for free... probably a good thing i didnt see it... I'd be a statistic.
On the way to ravenna we paused at S.Apollinaro in classe, impressive church again... yeah ,... mosaics... but there was a first communion service going on which was great to see,.. kids on the big stage with the padre, proud parents watching priests asking kids questions about their faith and simple bible quizzes and the kids answering proudly or shyly turning away from the mass and whispering their answer into the priests ear... i got to tell off a german who was using a flash camera, everyone loved me.... well aside from the tourist... but i had a shirt on and looked impressive.
On the minibus ride on the way back I discovered exactly how sore my ass can get .. and also discussed the intricacies of the german and italian recycling programs with my class mate Rupi... man those germans know how to party.
Ravenna is most famous for its mosaics, and although many italian cities make that claim there is some pretty impressive stuff here... but... for me.. I'm not really into going into some massive monument to see a whole heap of intricately constructed objects places so far from you that you cant appreciate their intricasy or the efforts of the craftsmen. One of the new sites is the Domus dei tappeti di pietro, which was a site unearthed during a mundane demolition, this exposed roughly 50x20m of beautiful mosaic work including some murals, mix of greek and roman influences but the sheer geometry of it is stupfying, if you are going to Ravenna in the next few months be sure to check it out... it's not on the tourist maps as yet as it only opened a few months ago... everything else is churches.
The city being near the coast is flat and easy to get around, its paved streets have a smooth section in the centre which i quickly realised... mi scusa signora,.. is for people riding bikes... it was only after 5 hours of walking around that we discovered that there were bikes for tourists available for free... probably a good thing i didnt see it... I'd be a statistic.
On the way to ravenna we paused at S.Apollinaro in classe, impressive church again... yeah ,... mosaics... but there was a first communion service going on which was great to see,.. kids on the big stage with the padre, proud parents watching priests asking kids questions about their faith and simple bible quizzes and the kids answering proudly or shyly turning away from the mass and whispering their answer into the priests ear... i got to tell off a german who was using a flash camera, everyone loved me.... well aside from the tourist... but i had a shirt on and looked impressive.
On the minibus ride on the way back I discovered exactly how sore my ass can get .. and also discussed the intricacies of the german and italian recycling programs with my class mate Rupi... man those germans know how to party.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Day 8 - 7th May 2003 - Urbino
This afternoon around 18 of us piled into a little bus, the kind of bus you usually see at the bottom of a steep ravine on the 6 o clock news and headed off for a few hours in Urbino with a few stops along the way ... the first of which being .. you guessed it... a ravine.
The river Metauro that slowly winds its way around Urbania combines itself with several other rivers in the area and has forged a valley in the vicinity of Urbino. Steep cliff faces of various coloured stones rise suddenly up from the river forming a cathedral of stone, at the opening of this fiorgo a small church stands we piled out of our bus and into it's cold dark space with the sounds of kids playing a rather energetic game of soccer at a park directly opposite bouncing off the walls, again the clash of the ancient and the utterly modern is everywhere. The slab in the chamber below the pulpit was cold, i lay down for a few seconds when nobody in the group was watching.... somebody had carved "Juve Merda" on the stone above my head.
During the afternoon we had the opportunity to spend a great deal more time in Urbino, once again the youthful effervescence of the town during school days is its most prominent feature but we had time to walk some of its ridiculously steeply sloped streets.
It was only recently that cricket jumpers became all the rage in Europe, one of the sports clothing stores in urbino still had a good range to choose from... my favourite were the mockups of rugby league jumpers,.. with my favourite slogan being ''The frontier spirit of the australia'' the 25 euro price tage took it beyond the souvenir bracket but i had a good laugh at the shopkeeper's expense,.. which is good as it is usually the otherway around.
This afternoon around 18 of us piled into a little bus, the kind of bus you usually see at the bottom of a steep ravine on the 6 o clock news and headed off for a few hours in Urbino with a few stops along the way ... the first of which being .. you guessed it... a ravine.
The river Metauro that slowly winds its way around Urbania combines itself with several other rivers in the area and has forged a valley in the vicinity of Urbino. Steep cliff faces of various coloured stones rise suddenly up from the river forming a cathedral of stone, at the opening of this fiorgo a small church stands we piled out of our bus and into it's cold dark space with the sounds of kids playing a rather energetic game of soccer at a park directly opposite bouncing off the walls, again the clash of the ancient and the utterly modern is everywhere. The slab in the chamber below the pulpit was cold, i lay down for a few seconds when nobody in the group was watching.... somebody had carved "Juve Merda" on the stone above my head.
During the afternoon we had the opportunity to spend a great deal more time in Urbino, once again the youthful effervescence of the town during school days is its most prominent feature but we had time to walk some of its ridiculously steeply sloped streets.
It was only recently that cricket jumpers became all the rage in Europe, one of the sports clothing stores in urbino still had a good range to choose from... my favourite were the mockups of rugby league jumpers,.. with my favourite slogan being ''The frontier spirit of the australia'' the 25 euro price tage took it beyond the souvenir bracket but i had a good laugh at the shopkeeper's expense,.. which is good as it is usually the otherway around.
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Day 7 - 6th May 2003
Im not getting paid for this plug, but as it so happens, all the teachers in the school are absolute dolls. We were greeted with their beaming smiles and rounds of Buongiorno when we first entered the doors and it was just impossible to not be lifted by their youthful enthusiasm and breathtakingly tight pants.... a la italiano.
My teacher is Monia, a lovely girl from the nearby town of Apecchio, long text book italian bombshell black curly hair, dark eyes and a smile that breaks hearts at 50 paces. The classes are conducted entirely in Italian albeit it with the odd word or two in English from Monia to help us know the meaning of a new verb. My fellow class mates are - Mehdy a young American guy from University of South Carolina who has an Iranian background a good sense of humour and your all american type, Rupi, hailing from Germania and who is certainly the most vocal of our classmates, i mean that in a technical and sensible sense,.. i would definitely be the one who craps on the most. Jan and Helder an elderly Dutch couple who are devoting the rest of their lives to travel, Jan has a wicked sense of humour and he and I have been getting along rather well and finally Chang Chang a chinese girl who has the best diction and grammar skills in the class but who closes up like the proverbial clam shell when it's her turn to speak.
I on the other hand would easily have the worst grammar skills in the class but launch into long soliliquies when asked to speak, I've never let grammar get in the way of an opportunity to speak shit. Per sempio when asked to introduce ourselves to the class and tell them what sort of place we liev in back home i said something along the lines of 'I am the duke of melbourne, well actually i am the son of the duke of melbourne i am just a bum who travels the world spending money. I live in a grand palace with approximately 30 bedrooms a few swimming pools a church in which we play tennis and 3 pink dogs' Its great what you can do with a rudimentary understanding of a language, a dictionary and a few spare hours.
We haev classes mon-fri from 8:50 to 12:20 conversation classes in the afternoon from 2:30 to 4:30 special lectures organised in the afternoons of Monday and Wednesday and a revision class on Saturday mornings from 9:00 until 11:00. The school also organises excursions on wednesday afternoons and all day sunday, tomorrow afternoon we go to Urbino with a few stops along the way.
Tonight however i figured that study was my best option, although I am glad I have been placed in the elementary group, I have a great deal of catching up to do, the course I completed in Melbourne was very conversation based and though this made it possible for me to land in Rome and be able to feed myself and gain shelter I have to start plugging the gaps.
Im not getting paid for this plug, but as it so happens, all the teachers in the school are absolute dolls. We were greeted with their beaming smiles and rounds of Buongiorno when we first entered the doors and it was just impossible to not be lifted by their youthful enthusiasm and breathtakingly tight pants.... a la italiano.
My teacher is Monia, a lovely girl from the nearby town of Apecchio, long text book italian bombshell black curly hair, dark eyes and a smile that breaks hearts at 50 paces. The classes are conducted entirely in Italian albeit it with the odd word or two in English from Monia to help us know the meaning of a new verb. My fellow class mates are - Mehdy a young American guy from University of South Carolina who has an Iranian background a good sense of humour and your all american type, Rupi, hailing from Germania and who is certainly the most vocal of our classmates, i mean that in a technical and sensible sense,.. i would definitely be the one who craps on the most. Jan and Helder an elderly Dutch couple who are devoting the rest of their lives to travel, Jan has a wicked sense of humour and he and I have been getting along rather well and finally Chang Chang a chinese girl who has the best diction and grammar skills in the class but who closes up like the proverbial clam shell when it's her turn to speak.
I on the other hand would easily have the worst grammar skills in the class but launch into long soliliquies when asked to speak, I've never let grammar get in the way of an opportunity to speak shit. Per sempio when asked to introduce ourselves to the class and tell them what sort of place we liev in back home i said something along the lines of 'I am the duke of melbourne, well actually i am the son of the duke of melbourne i am just a bum who travels the world spending money. I live in a grand palace with approximately 30 bedrooms a few swimming pools a church in which we play tennis and 3 pink dogs' Its great what you can do with a rudimentary understanding of a language, a dictionary and a few spare hours.
We haev classes mon-fri from 8:50 to 12:20 conversation classes in the afternoon from 2:30 to 4:30 special lectures organised in the afternoons of Monday and Wednesday and a revision class on Saturday mornings from 9:00 until 11:00. The school also organises excursions on wednesday afternoons and all day sunday, tomorrow afternoon we go to Urbino with a few stops along the way.
Tonight however i figured that study was my best option, although I am glad I have been placed in the elementary group, I have a great deal of catching up to do, the course I completed in Melbourne was very conversation based and though this made it possible for me to land in Rome and be able to feed myself and gain shelter I have to start plugging the gaps.
Monday, May 05, 2003
Day 6 - Back to School
My mum didn't pack me a lunch and I didn't cry when i was standing at the front door of the school waiting for the first day to begin, but the place has a bell that rings between classes,.. so i guess it's flash back time.
Monday was the beginning of my 4 week course at the Centro Studi Italiani here in Urbania. The course commenced with an entrance exam, the only italian i had studied was 10 x 3 hour classes )level 1 and 2) in Melbourne, after about 20 seconds reading the entrance exam for the course i figured that the standards here would be significantly higher.
I fumbled my way through the exam stuffing up what I thought were fairly basic things and then had to inflict the oral component of the exam onto one of the teachers. I guess i did better than I thought, because eventhough my grammar was pretty abismal and you could drive several 3 wheel APE through the holes in my vocab i managed to get into the elementary group and avoid having to go through the beginners course again.
That Afternoon Danilo, one of the school admin staff and all round cool dude took the new students on a bit of a hike to a monastery just outside of the town. A good chance to shoot the shit with the other students and for the younger and more adventurous amongst the group to designate shagging targets. Student numbers are down this semester due to the travel precautions that have plagued the world over the past few months so there are only about 25 of us.
Later that night we were guests at a local enoteca 'Vin Italy' where we sampled several local wines while the store's proprietors Alessandra and his wife Maria Grazie discussed some of the finer points of the stuff we were shoveling down our throats, some of the highlights included a Vin Santo which was a sweety ... smells and tastes like a Noble Riesling, several sweeter reds, served chilled just how i like em and some wines from Puglia. The drinks were accompanied by serveral antipasti parmesano and salami from the local area and an absolutely magnificent olive oil which i will definitely be sending back home, golden and light with an effervescence that i have never ever encountered before, yeah top night.
I returned to my wog palace in via dante alighieri to an interesting night listening to the trio of dogs in the area, the upstairs neighbour who insists on walking around the tiled floors of her apartment in what must be steel tipped stilleto boots and the neighbours on the other side of our bedroom wall quite happy to allow their nippers (nipoti) to have some very professionally coordinated tanrtrums. Classes start at 8:50 Tuesday morning
My mum didn't pack me a lunch and I didn't cry when i was standing at the front door of the school waiting for the first day to begin, but the place has a bell that rings between classes,.. so i guess it's flash back time.
Monday was the beginning of my 4 week course at the Centro Studi Italiani here in Urbania. The course commenced with an entrance exam, the only italian i had studied was 10 x 3 hour classes )level 1 and 2) in Melbourne, after about 20 seconds reading the entrance exam for the course i figured that the standards here would be significantly higher.
I fumbled my way through the exam stuffing up what I thought were fairly basic things and then had to inflict the oral component of the exam onto one of the teachers. I guess i did better than I thought, because eventhough my grammar was pretty abismal and you could drive several 3 wheel APE through the holes in my vocab i managed to get into the elementary group and avoid having to go through the beginners course again.
That Afternoon Danilo, one of the school admin staff and all round cool dude took the new students on a bit of a hike to a monastery just outside of the town. A good chance to shoot the shit with the other students and for the younger and more adventurous amongst the group to designate shagging targets. Student numbers are down this semester due to the travel precautions that have plagued the world over the past few months so there are only about 25 of us.
Later that night we were guests at a local enoteca 'Vin Italy' where we sampled several local wines while the store's proprietors Alessandra and his wife Maria Grazie discussed some of the finer points of the stuff we were shoveling down our throats, some of the highlights included a Vin Santo which was a sweety ... smells and tastes like a Noble Riesling, several sweeter reds, served chilled just how i like em and some wines from Puglia. The drinks were accompanied by serveral antipasti parmesano and salami from the local area and an absolutely magnificent olive oil which i will definitely be sending back home, golden and light with an effervescence that i have never ever encountered before, yeah top night.
I returned to my wog palace in via dante alighieri to an interesting night listening to the trio of dogs in the area, the upstairs neighbour who insists on walking around the tiled floors of her apartment in what must be steel tipped stilleto boots and the neighbours on the other side of our bedroom wall quite happy to allow their nippers (nipoti) to have some very professionally coordinated tanrtrums. Classes start at 8:50 Tuesday morning
Day 5 - Hungry in Urbania
The apartment I find myself in is a fairly typical Greek or Italian family apartment block. The parents have a largish block located near the town centre, knock down the shack and build a two storey concrete slab structure which houses them and their children and has other seperate apartments which, if all goes ccording to the master plan... their children will move into when they are old enough to marry.
Most of the apartments in the via i live on are such structures.. the street's name is of course Via Dante Alighieri what better name could there be for a travelling scholar such as myself. The place is noisy, even for a Sunday morning, i find myself up with the roosters letting the cool mountan air hit my face at about 6:30 am, I figure time for a shower and a walk.
In the brief encounter with landlord guy i had some detailed instructions on how to operate the hot water system, this involved the highly technical flicking of the switch on and waiting... in fact the intructions were difficult because i wasn't familiar with the italian verb ricordare which has nothing to do with burning copies of CD's, it simply means remember,... don't forget that... maybe record it somewhere.
So switch located and appropriately flicked, pants off and waiting... and yeah... even after several glances at my watch.. no hot water... This figures, it's that bloody taxi driver Karma coming back to get the unvierse in sync once more... A cold shower, in a cold apartment on what was thankfully not as cold a morning as it can get around these parts.
So, with a slight shiver in my knees and having checked that i have the apartamento keys on me 3 times i head off for a better look around Utbania.
Urbania like Urbino is located within mountain range peaks, Urbania is reasonably flat, ... absolutely flat when compared to Urbino but hilly when compared to ... Noble Park. (noble park being the global standard for determining the hillicity of urban areas). Urbania's old city is walled and surrounded almost entired by a river (the Metauro) which is rather dank but makes for good photos as long as you keep your camera's smellavision features set to off.
I paused for some time at the eastern bridge into the town, an old bridge with a large single arch, rising about 30 metres from the river, the banks of the river crammed with very sensibly arranged vegetable gardens and a rather new but quaint looking shack. I sat on the stone wall and pretended to read whilst actually watching birds swoop playfully down the sides of the valley and under the bridge their chirpring echoing crisply off the stone walls.
I figured I would read for a while until the town started to wake, luckily i wasn't serious, as it was now about 9:00 a.m. and apart from one old lady who sported that the °what the heck are you!° look on her face as she passed me and the odd old man driving around in his APE it was only me the birds and several slowly growing vegetables that were moving.
I returned to the town square to find several people out and about, the road through the centre of town had been blocked just to make me believe there was going to be a market or something that involved the exchange of goods and services for slips of paper but it wasnt to be, the barriers were purely to divert the 1 car per minute which would have used those streets on a sunday and given them something to tisk tisk about.
There were 2 Gelateria open,.. so... my diet for the day
10:00 breakfast - a un espresso e uno piccolo gelato tiramisu
13:00 lunch - un espresso un aqua minerale e uno piccolo gelato fragole
17:00 afternoon snack.. felt like something different - una grande e un gelato con tiramisu e caffe e panne (thats cream not bread folks)
16:00 for the long 3 minute walk home ... another grande with tiramisu and vanilla, hold the panne.
In betwixt gelati i had ample opportunity to perform several giri of Urbania, beautifully laid out, narrow cobbled streets with all streetfront places being 1 or 2 storeys and a great mix of adornments made to the houses, signs of life on every door and window, the strung up laundry the odd well fed cat, stores selling fresh produce nestled behind simple doors a good mix of churches which have a politely coordinated bell ringing hierarchy and even a small church where mumified remains of long dead significant people are visible, certainly never seen anything like that before.
I tracked down the location of my school and all the other essential services i would need, including a pool table in one of the bars and headed back home to digest my gelati.
The apartment I find myself in is a fairly typical Greek or Italian family apartment block. The parents have a largish block located near the town centre, knock down the shack and build a two storey concrete slab structure which houses them and their children and has other seperate apartments which, if all goes ccording to the master plan... their children will move into when they are old enough to marry.
Most of the apartments in the via i live on are such structures.. the street's name is of course Via Dante Alighieri what better name could there be for a travelling scholar such as myself. The place is noisy, even for a Sunday morning, i find myself up with the roosters letting the cool mountan air hit my face at about 6:30 am, I figure time for a shower and a walk.
In the brief encounter with landlord guy i had some detailed instructions on how to operate the hot water system, this involved the highly technical flicking of the switch on and waiting... in fact the intructions were difficult because i wasn't familiar with the italian verb ricordare which has nothing to do with burning copies of CD's, it simply means remember,... don't forget that... maybe record it somewhere.
So switch located and appropriately flicked, pants off and waiting... and yeah... even after several glances at my watch.. no hot water... This figures, it's that bloody taxi driver Karma coming back to get the unvierse in sync once more... A cold shower, in a cold apartment on what was thankfully not as cold a morning as it can get around these parts.
So, with a slight shiver in my knees and having checked that i have the apartamento keys on me 3 times i head off for a better look around Utbania.
Urbania like Urbino is located within mountain range peaks, Urbania is reasonably flat, ... absolutely flat when compared to Urbino but hilly when compared to ... Noble Park. (noble park being the global standard for determining the hillicity of urban areas). Urbania's old city is walled and surrounded almost entired by a river (the Metauro) which is rather dank but makes for good photos as long as you keep your camera's smellavision features set to off.
I paused for some time at the eastern bridge into the town, an old bridge with a large single arch, rising about 30 metres from the river, the banks of the river crammed with very sensibly arranged vegetable gardens and a rather new but quaint looking shack. I sat on the stone wall and pretended to read whilst actually watching birds swoop playfully down the sides of the valley and under the bridge their chirpring echoing crisply off the stone walls.
I figured I would read for a while until the town started to wake, luckily i wasn't serious, as it was now about 9:00 a.m. and apart from one old lady who sported that the °what the heck are you!° look on her face as she passed me and the odd old man driving around in his APE it was only me the birds and several slowly growing vegetables that were moving.
I returned to the town square to find several people out and about, the road through the centre of town had been blocked just to make me believe there was going to be a market or something that involved the exchange of goods and services for slips of paper but it wasnt to be, the barriers were purely to divert the 1 car per minute which would have used those streets on a sunday and given them something to tisk tisk about.
There were 2 Gelateria open,.. so... my diet for the day
10:00 breakfast - a un espresso e uno piccolo gelato tiramisu
13:00 lunch - un espresso un aqua minerale e uno piccolo gelato fragole
17:00 afternoon snack.. felt like something different - una grande e un gelato con tiramisu e caffe e panne (thats cream not bread folks)
16:00 for the long 3 minute walk home ... another grande with tiramisu and vanilla, hold the panne.
In betwixt gelati i had ample opportunity to perform several giri of Urbania, beautifully laid out, narrow cobbled streets with all streetfront places being 1 or 2 storeys and a great mix of adornments made to the houses, signs of life on every door and window, the strung up laundry the odd well fed cat, stores selling fresh produce nestled behind simple doors a good mix of churches which have a politely coordinated bell ringing hierarchy and even a small church where mumified remains of long dead significant people are visible, certainly never seen anything like that before.
I tracked down the location of my school and all the other essential services i would need, including a pool table in one of the bars and headed back home to digest my gelati.
Day 4 - Rome to Urbania
Some journeys seem to take longer the closer you get to your destination,
I left Roma's beautiful (cough) Termini Station early on Satuday morning, having secured my ticket the day prior and even remembered to reserve a seat. A 3 hour train ride to Falconara on the Adriatic coast was the first leg.
At Termini station I was that guy that always gets those looks from yourg girls or older ladies who are having or are anticipating having trouble freeing up a baggage trolley... and being the all round nice guy (read sucker) that I am ... I helped out when I could, even with a rather large backpack strapped to me, ... and to answer the question... no,.. not all the ladies I offerred assistance to were good looking... some of them were great looking, I think one of them may have been a model, although for what who could say, but there was at least one who was rather plain. maybe...
So if you are looking for trolley loosening tips see me when i get back cos i had that shit sorted after an hour standing around the departures board waiting for my Ancona train platform number to appear. But if you are googling a solution and need info now... It's all in the bounce, lift the trolley gracefully and slam it down hard... dont shy away from a 5 or 6 trolley convoy as this additional mass helps you on the crucial downstroke... the same theory applies to many things not solely trolley related.
The trip to Falconara was reasonable, sat next to an italian woman reading a translated Wilbur Smith novel,.. it seems crap literature knows no boundaries... Got to see some rather picturesque scenery, it felt good to see lush green plains augmented by the brilliant european springtime sun.
At Falconara I disembarked gracefully and got a lungful of Adriatic air, as most of you hardened travellers will know the train line along the east coast of Italia runs along the shoreline for pretty much the entire calf muscle of "the boot", so my trip from Falconara to Pesaro was spent mainly looking over my right shoulder at the expanse of blue and the meeting of sky and water.
At Pesaro it was time to use the italian and sort out the buses,.. A bus to Urbino was the second last leg of the journey, ... ask ''dove la bus per urbino'' at the train station, walk to the °piazza° (I have learnt now that Piazza usually means the place where the rubbish bins are located ... or ... carpark)... stand around waiting, ask the guy in the ticket office when the bus comes, he tells you when the bus comes but doesn't tell you that the tickets are for sale at the bar at the other end of the piazza, so when the bus arrives you do a mad dash across the piazza and meet the bar owner at the door who has a handful of tickets awaiting the oncoming masses... anyway... i am now on the Bus
Urbino, is a university town nestled in the mountains about 45 minutes off the Adriatic coast, fairly unique mix of architecture and humanity, very youthful due to all those pesky students but right up there on world standards of significant buildings with the palazzo ducale and other highlights certainly making the place worth a visit,.. I had a quick stroll around but the very steep hills, my backpack and already 8 hours on the trip clock combined with the fact that it was only 18kms from my ultimate destination made me figure... come back some other time.
So I parked my ass under the portico in the very tasteful carpark and waited for the Urbania bus to arrive... 60 minutes of squinting at oncoming bus signs paid dividends and one large Bucci bus lunged towards me with my destination displayed above the driver's head. 1, or 2 or 20 steep climbs, breathtaking turns and with me the only person on the bus the doors are flung open at yet another car park along with the driver's enthusiastic cry of "Urbania"
But Im not there just yet,.. I am in Urbania to do a 4 week Italian course, accomodation at an apartment has been organised, i have the apartment address but dont really fnacy my chances of finding it,.. i have the owners mobile number which i assume i had been given with good reason.. so i call it.. an old lady answers the phone...
me: buona sera signora, signore davide passeri per favore
signora: 30 seconds of uninterrupted italian shouted down the telephone line
me: mi scusi signora ma parlo un po' italiano
signora: repeats what i assume was the same passage but slower and louder,
she then drops the phone, I figure i am supposed to stay on the line... she returns... and rattles off a series of numbers... i am a clever guy and figure this is probably a phone number... I hang up and ring it
The phone is answered thusly
"yes yes si si aspetta arrivo a cinque minuti.. i have one car ggggreyyyy"
I knew what that meant so ordered a coke and sat down at the bar near the bus stop trying to spot anything moving and grey.
Several cars pull up, none of them grey, one rather nice silver hatch appears,.. i recall the difficulty my father and i had over the years understanding the subtleties in the translation of things silver in colour grey in colour white in colour or transparent, if your dad is a wog, try a little experiment, ask him to pass you something "clear" like a screwdriver with a clear plastic handle... go on... do it... see what happens...
So a Silver VW Golf, translated as grey appears,.
I stand up backpack in my hands,... I am trying to look as touristy as possible ... i am pretty sure I even had a map in my hands... he walks up to me doesn't give me a second look... walks past me into the bar ... out again and into his macchina and off. After what I know now would have been a lap of the town the silver car returns, he gets out walks past me again ... °Davide?° I say... he turns to me as if i just fell from the sky... °Yes... chrisa!!!° we go.
He takes me to what will be home for 4 weeks.. its a combination of typical melbourne suburban construction methods,.. with that added element of euro wog chic, the place is newish but seems to have been constructed using salvaged parts and the remains of what used to reside at that address, different tiles in each room, differrent door knobs on each door, strange mixture of light fittings, but it was reasonably clean and i was assured that it was just "two one hundred metres " from the centro,. this could have been 2100 metres, 102 metres, or 200 metres., I obviously had too much time on my hands.
A brief tour of the facilities and my new landlord Davide disappears and I, a tired and weary traveller on the new leg of a journey stand in the kitchen listening to two flies bounce off the window.
Its probably nowhere near as bad as it seems, i say to myself.
I unpack my bags, lie down for 30 minutes and decide to test out this "two one hundred metre " theory, Davide's directions were good and I find myself in the centre of town... once again turning heads.... the sole objective was food, but some of the buildings and the old bridge i literally stumbled across just made me stop for an oh wow moment.
The smell of wood fired pizza dragged me nose first into La Loggia pizzeria, i had an insalata Caprese with some very generous slabs of fromaggio de la name escapes me, fat juicy pomodore and basil leaves that cover your palm.. and a pizza boscaiola, the pizza was super thin, crisp and still had charcoal specs from the wood oven on it, it hung over the plate, big but not very bready so it hit the spot, luckily my good sense told me that it was unlikely that i would find something to eat on sunday in such a small town.. so i loaded up... wise choice.
Some journeys seem to take longer the closer you get to your destination,
I left Roma's beautiful (cough) Termini Station early on Satuday morning, having secured my ticket the day prior and even remembered to reserve a seat. A 3 hour train ride to Falconara on the Adriatic coast was the first leg.
At Termini station I was that guy that always gets those looks from yourg girls or older ladies who are having or are anticipating having trouble freeing up a baggage trolley... and being the all round nice guy (read sucker) that I am ... I helped out when I could, even with a rather large backpack strapped to me, ... and to answer the question... no,.. not all the ladies I offerred assistance to were good looking... some of them were great looking, I think one of them may have been a model, although for what who could say, but there was at least one who was rather plain. maybe...
So if you are looking for trolley loosening tips see me when i get back cos i had that shit sorted after an hour standing around the departures board waiting for my Ancona train platform number to appear. But if you are googling a solution and need info now... It's all in the bounce, lift the trolley gracefully and slam it down hard... dont shy away from a 5 or 6 trolley convoy as this additional mass helps you on the crucial downstroke... the same theory applies to many things not solely trolley related.
The trip to Falconara was reasonable, sat next to an italian woman reading a translated Wilbur Smith novel,.. it seems crap literature knows no boundaries... Got to see some rather picturesque scenery, it felt good to see lush green plains augmented by the brilliant european springtime sun.
At Falconara I disembarked gracefully and got a lungful of Adriatic air, as most of you hardened travellers will know the train line along the east coast of Italia runs along the shoreline for pretty much the entire calf muscle of "the boot", so my trip from Falconara to Pesaro was spent mainly looking over my right shoulder at the expanse of blue and the meeting of sky and water.
At Pesaro it was time to use the italian and sort out the buses,.. A bus to Urbino was the second last leg of the journey, ... ask ''dove la bus per urbino'' at the train station, walk to the °piazza° (I have learnt now that Piazza usually means the place where the rubbish bins are located ... or ... carpark)... stand around waiting, ask the guy in the ticket office when the bus comes, he tells you when the bus comes but doesn't tell you that the tickets are for sale at the bar at the other end of the piazza, so when the bus arrives you do a mad dash across the piazza and meet the bar owner at the door who has a handful of tickets awaiting the oncoming masses... anyway... i am now on the Bus
Urbino, is a university town nestled in the mountains about 45 minutes off the Adriatic coast, fairly unique mix of architecture and humanity, very youthful due to all those pesky students but right up there on world standards of significant buildings with the palazzo ducale and other highlights certainly making the place worth a visit,.. I had a quick stroll around but the very steep hills, my backpack and already 8 hours on the trip clock combined with the fact that it was only 18kms from my ultimate destination made me figure... come back some other time.
So I parked my ass under the portico in the very tasteful carpark and waited for the Urbania bus to arrive... 60 minutes of squinting at oncoming bus signs paid dividends and one large Bucci bus lunged towards me with my destination displayed above the driver's head. 1, or 2 or 20 steep climbs, breathtaking turns and with me the only person on the bus the doors are flung open at yet another car park along with the driver's enthusiastic cry of "Urbania"
But Im not there just yet,.. I am in Urbania to do a 4 week Italian course, accomodation at an apartment has been organised, i have the apartment address but dont really fnacy my chances of finding it,.. i have the owners mobile number which i assume i had been given with good reason.. so i call it.. an old lady answers the phone...
me: buona sera signora, signore davide passeri per favore
signora: 30 seconds of uninterrupted italian shouted down the telephone line
me: mi scusi signora ma parlo un po' italiano
signora: repeats what i assume was the same passage but slower and louder,
she then drops the phone, I figure i am supposed to stay on the line... she returns... and rattles off a series of numbers... i am a clever guy and figure this is probably a phone number... I hang up and ring it
The phone is answered thusly
"yes yes si si aspetta arrivo a cinque minuti.. i have one car ggggreyyyy"
I knew what that meant so ordered a coke and sat down at the bar near the bus stop trying to spot anything moving and grey.
Several cars pull up, none of them grey, one rather nice silver hatch appears,.. i recall the difficulty my father and i had over the years understanding the subtleties in the translation of things silver in colour grey in colour white in colour or transparent, if your dad is a wog, try a little experiment, ask him to pass you something "clear" like a screwdriver with a clear plastic handle... go on... do it... see what happens...
So a Silver VW Golf, translated as grey appears,.
I stand up backpack in my hands,... I am trying to look as touristy as possible ... i am pretty sure I even had a map in my hands... he walks up to me doesn't give me a second look... walks past me into the bar ... out again and into his macchina and off. After what I know now would have been a lap of the town the silver car returns, he gets out walks past me again ... °Davide?° I say... he turns to me as if i just fell from the sky... °Yes... chrisa!!!° we go.
He takes me to what will be home for 4 weeks.. its a combination of typical melbourne suburban construction methods,.. with that added element of euro wog chic, the place is newish but seems to have been constructed using salvaged parts and the remains of what used to reside at that address, different tiles in each room, differrent door knobs on each door, strange mixture of light fittings, but it was reasonably clean and i was assured that it was just "two one hundred metres " from the centro,. this could have been 2100 metres, 102 metres, or 200 metres., I obviously had too much time on my hands.
A brief tour of the facilities and my new landlord Davide disappears and I, a tired and weary traveller on the new leg of a journey stand in the kitchen listening to two flies bounce off the window.
Its probably nowhere near as bad as it seems, i say to myself.
I unpack my bags, lie down for 30 minutes and decide to test out this "two one hundred metre " theory, Davide's directions were good and I find myself in the centre of town... once again turning heads.... the sole objective was food, but some of the buildings and the old bridge i literally stumbled across just made me stop for an oh wow moment.
The smell of wood fired pizza dragged me nose first into La Loggia pizzeria, i had an insalata Caprese with some very generous slabs of fromaggio de la name escapes me, fat juicy pomodore and basil leaves that cover your palm.. and a pizza boscaiola, the pizza was super thin, crisp and still had charcoal specs from the wood oven on it, it hung over the plate, big but not very bready so it hit the spot, luckily my good sense told me that it was unlikely that i would find something to eat on sunday in such a small town.. so i loaded up... wise choice.
Saturday, May 03, 2003
day 1 - Trastevere - Colosseum - Forum
I have always been against planning, this will come as no shock to my past employers.. and this holiday had a bit of a plan but i wanted to just land in a city and have to fumble my way around at first... it was a luxury that only time can give, and i had that in buckets.
So here I was in Rome. i knew little about the city ... I had a map but wasn't sure exactly where I was, wasn't sure which way the river was so wasn't even able to just wing it... but I did have myself some most comforbale lodgings at Hotel San Francesco in Trastevere, so it wasn't like I was camping or anything... lordie lordie
I spent the first few hours of the morning gathering and getting a better idea of where I was.
I did some road crossing practice,.. even though I was telling myself to ignore everything that Hector the cat taught me about road safety and "look to the left"... my brain refused to comply and turned my head to the right.. and quite nearly, I, like many a tourist from a "we drive on the left" country almost got run down with the first step I placed on a Roman road. It wasn't the proverbial bus,.. and it wasnt even one of those crazy 3 wheeled cars,.. just an everyday fiat ... its driver said something to me which i will have to take up with my Italian teacher when i get back.
A bit more road crossing practice and i was feeling better,.. made my way to the river, back to the hotel and sense of direction (one of those things you cant buy at the tabachi) had been acquired.
Most of you know I am no fan of crap movies.. in fact some of you probably think I exclusively like crap movies.. that's because in actual fact it's you who like crap movies and don't yet know it.. But I watched the movie Gladiator all because of this strange obsession I have with the colosseum,.. i have never been able to explain it... but the place has captivated me since a fellow student showed me some photos of it back in 1978, Well today I walked it, touched it smelt it etc, and although cliched and reasonably crowded it still meant something, the scale of things, the scale of human ability to both build something magnificent and yet use it for something so primitive .. and the need to preserve these structures as places of importance even though the tastes and beliefs of the people that see it every day have changed.
Tourists will be pleased to note that the gladiatorially clad dickheads who try and make you take photos of them were gone, that was nice, although i had armed myself with several swear words just for their ears,.. but knowledge is a good thing,, i am sure it will come in handy one day soon.
From the colleseum it was onto the Roman Forum just a bunch of old stuff really,.. nice place for a block of apartments, i had read a comment on a website about Circa Massimo once,.. which just read °why dont they just concrete it° and figured i better go and work out why for myself... well it's got me stuffed... i think Melbourne's Italian community should each send 1 kilo of pebble mix over to cover the place,..
Back to my bed in Trastevere for more efforts at de-jetlagging myself... i have hayfever,.. i never get hayfever,.. crazy roman pollen i guess... jasmine everywhere, sweet smelling,.. but eye swelling.
I have always been against planning, this will come as no shock to my past employers.. and this holiday had a bit of a plan but i wanted to just land in a city and have to fumble my way around at first... it was a luxury that only time can give, and i had that in buckets.
So here I was in Rome. i knew little about the city ... I had a map but wasn't sure exactly where I was, wasn't sure which way the river was so wasn't even able to just wing it... but I did have myself some most comforbale lodgings at Hotel San Francesco in Trastevere, so it wasn't like I was camping or anything... lordie lordie
I spent the first few hours of the morning gathering and getting a better idea of where I was.
I did some road crossing practice,.. even though I was telling myself to ignore everything that Hector the cat taught me about road safety and "look to the left"... my brain refused to comply and turned my head to the right.. and quite nearly, I, like many a tourist from a "we drive on the left" country almost got run down with the first step I placed on a Roman road. It wasn't the proverbial bus,.. and it wasnt even one of those crazy 3 wheeled cars,.. just an everyday fiat ... its driver said something to me which i will have to take up with my Italian teacher when i get back.
A bit more road crossing practice and i was feeling better,.. made my way to the river, back to the hotel and sense of direction (one of those things you cant buy at the tabachi) had been acquired.
Most of you know I am no fan of crap movies.. in fact some of you probably think I exclusively like crap movies.. that's because in actual fact it's you who like crap movies and don't yet know it.. But I watched the movie Gladiator all because of this strange obsession I have with the colosseum,.. i have never been able to explain it... but the place has captivated me since a fellow student showed me some photos of it back in 1978, Well today I walked it, touched it smelt it etc, and although cliched and reasonably crowded it still meant something, the scale of things, the scale of human ability to both build something magnificent and yet use it for something so primitive .. and the need to preserve these structures as places of importance even though the tastes and beliefs of the people that see it every day have changed.
Tourists will be pleased to note that the gladiatorially clad dickheads who try and make you take photos of them were gone, that was nice, although i had armed myself with several swear words just for their ears,.. but knowledge is a good thing,, i am sure it will come in handy one day soon.
From the colleseum it was onto the Roman Forum just a bunch of old stuff really,.. nice place for a block of apartments, i had read a comment on a website about Circa Massimo once,.. which just read °why dont they just concrete it° and figured i better go and work out why for myself... well it's got me stuffed... i think Melbourne's Italian community should each send 1 kilo of pebble mix over to cover the place,..
Back to my bed in Trastevere for more efforts at de-jetlagging myself... i have hayfever,.. i never get hayfever,.. crazy roman pollen i guess... jasmine everywhere, sweet smelling,.. but eye swelling.
Day 3 - May 2 - Central Rome
Rome basically shuts down for May Day, so in my travels i came across several shops that i had been looking for, the local supermarket, tabacchi , post office, phone shop... so i started my day with a mission, purchase a few things, including bus tickets and head into termini station to purchase tickets i would require to travel to Pesaro on Saturday ... tomorrow on my way to Urbania.
The bus whisked me off to Termini and it was all rather orderly... Melbourne has been plagued with public transport ticketing problems ... looks like rome has had a taste of their own.. each bus has 2 types of ticket validating machines... 1 old one and 3 new ones... but there is no ticket selling on board,.. you have to buy tickets from Tabacchi,.. but not all Tabacchi sell them because they dont make a cut on them that they are happy with... The newstands sell tickets but they are the old ones that they purchase via rather dodgy means apparently... they are still good, just not new fangled ones. fangled doesnt necessarily mean better,.. its just has added fangles.
I was trying to stick my old ticket int the new ticket slot much to the pleasure of the romans within sight of yet another hapless tourist doing this... they didnt offer help,.. it wasnt life or death.. the whole system seems a bit slack, turns ourt that the old validators are at the back of the bus only,... i knwo this now... this i now know.
Acquired tickets ra6ther swiftly at Termini,.. i had prearmed myself with keywords to lubricate the transaction,.. solo andate, posta, diretto, bigletto... done... hopefully wi ll actually find the train tomorrow morning...26 platforms and people wandering around everyhwere, rose sellers and beggars again yeah yeah.
Came across a fangled )refer to repvious definition of fangled and fanglisation) inernet access point in tyermini, it was ridiculously expensive but as i hadnt touched the net for 4 days... it was my duty... the fanlging of this net access computer meant that the keyboard had various dodgy keys, these were the seldom used letters °e° and °d° and space bar... so i apologise to the people i emaile during that time... ill decipher when i get back.
From Termini,.. a subway ride or two got me to Spagna... which i figured was roman for Spanish and the steps of the same name... well all those years at university paid off cos goddamit i was right... The Spanish steps was a suriprise actually, interesting beautiful and functional,.. and not just because i like looking at chicks... ok.. well maybe it was just because i like looking at chicks... but it was interesting... took the vide camera for a 30 minute stroll from piazza di populi to spanish steps and up the suckers... after which i needed a drink.
Now the restaurants etc near the tourist attractions are notorious for rip offs,.. so i sat at one just so i can share the story with you.. all prices in euro espresso 2,30 large 1L mineral water 2,90 small mineral water 1,90 sandwhiches around 7,00 pot of beer, 5,00 pint of beer 10,00 )thats 20 bucks for a pint of freaking no name la spina beer!!) So i order an espresso and a °grande° mineral water,.. but i receive an espresso and a °piccolo° mineral water.. and yeah you guessed it .. was charged for the grande... luckily for me the cashier spoke quite gopod english so she understood the abuse i poured on her establishment,... bring on the next victim i think she uttered.
From there, spring in my step delivered by roman espresso i headed off to the trevi fountain, i didnt expect to beimpressed,.. i wasnt... its just a lot of statues really,.. i mean yeah its impressive.. if you like that kind of thing,.. i came here becuase of a recommendation for internet access,.. from which i have been typing these updates.. and where i have spent the last 3 hours... simple place on via luchessi directly to the left of the fountain,.. typical narrow street overcorwded with gift shops and this lovely net point crammed with people from all over the world doing what we are all bound to do at some stage... think of those we have left behind.
cheers for now.... arriverderci roma domani,.. on to new experiences further north... i didnt toss a coin in the trevi but i think im coming back anyway.
Rome basically shuts down for May Day, so in my travels i came across several shops that i had been looking for, the local supermarket, tabacchi , post office, phone shop... so i started my day with a mission, purchase a few things, including bus tickets and head into termini station to purchase tickets i would require to travel to Pesaro on Saturday ... tomorrow on my way to Urbania.
The bus whisked me off to Termini and it was all rather orderly... Melbourne has been plagued with public transport ticketing problems ... looks like rome has had a taste of their own.. each bus has 2 types of ticket validating machines... 1 old one and 3 new ones... but there is no ticket selling on board,.. you have to buy tickets from Tabacchi,.. but not all Tabacchi sell them because they dont make a cut on them that they are happy with... The newstands sell tickets but they are the old ones that they purchase via rather dodgy means apparently... they are still good, just not new fangled ones. fangled doesnt necessarily mean better,.. its just has added fangles.
I was trying to stick my old ticket int the new ticket slot much to the pleasure of the romans within sight of yet another hapless tourist doing this... they didnt offer help,.. it wasnt life or death.. the whole system seems a bit slack, turns ourt that the old validators are at the back of the bus only,... i knwo this now... this i now know.
Acquired tickets ra6ther swiftly at Termini,.. i had prearmed myself with keywords to lubricate the transaction,.. solo andate, posta, diretto, bigletto... done... hopefully wi ll actually find the train tomorrow morning...26 platforms and people wandering around everyhwere, rose sellers and beggars again yeah yeah.
Came across a fangled )refer to repvious definition of fangled and fanglisation) inernet access point in tyermini, it was ridiculously expensive but as i hadnt touched the net for 4 days... it was my duty... the fanlging of this net access computer meant that the keyboard had various dodgy keys, these were the seldom used letters °e° and °d° and space bar... so i apologise to the people i emaile during that time... ill decipher when i get back.
From Termini,.. a subway ride or two got me to Spagna... which i figured was roman for Spanish and the steps of the same name... well all those years at university paid off cos goddamit i was right... The Spanish steps was a suriprise actually, interesting beautiful and functional,.. and not just because i like looking at chicks... ok.. well maybe it was just because i like looking at chicks... but it was interesting... took the vide camera for a 30 minute stroll from piazza di populi to spanish steps and up the suckers... after which i needed a drink.
Now the restaurants etc near the tourist attractions are notorious for rip offs,.. so i sat at one just so i can share the story with you.. all prices in euro espresso 2,30 large 1L mineral water 2,90 small mineral water 1,90 sandwhiches around 7,00 pot of beer, 5,00 pint of beer 10,00 )thats 20 bucks for a pint of freaking no name la spina beer!!) So i order an espresso and a °grande° mineral water,.. but i receive an espresso and a °piccolo° mineral water.. and yeah you guessed it .. was charged for the grande... luckily for me the cashier spoke quite gopod english so she understood the abuse i poured on her establishment,... bring on the next victim i think she uttered.
From there, spring in my step delivered by roman espresso i headed off to the trevi fountain, i didnt expect to beimpressed,.. i wasnt... its just a lot of statues really,.. i mean yeah its impressive.. if you like that kind of thing,.. i came here becuase of a recommendation for internet access,.. from which i have been typing these updates.. and where i have spent the last 3 hours... simple place on via luchessi directly to the left of the fountain,.. typical narrow street overcorwded with gift shops and this lovely net point crammed with people from all over the world doing what we are all bound to do at some stage... think of those we have left behind.
cheers for now.... arriverderci roma domani,.. on to new experiences further north... i didnt toss a coin in the trevi but i think im coming back anyway.
Day 0,5 First taste of romeI'm shagged i say to myself,.. i walk out the gates at Flumininco and didn't realise i was past customs until i found myself staring at a bus, dodgy people offering me everything from hot showers, to roses to °drivings in most comfortable of car°. what sort of business plan does the rose seller have ?? Am I a niche?? "hey I just got off a plane,.. how about a rose to celebrate"!!!The intersting signage at rome leads me to the train station conveniently located near the station via a series of escalators,.. they should just replace them with sheets of aluminium make you sit in a bag and give you a big push so you can go wheeeeee all the way to the ticket office.
Now the bulk of Tourists catch the express specifically designed train to take you direct to Termini station in central Rome.... but no... i like to do things differently,.. im not staying in central rome i am stayin in Trastevere, anybody who knows Rome will be oohing and ahhing about now... but that meant i had to catch the local °regionale°... i accomplished this and was feeling pretty proud of myself... even got off at the right station, remembered that uscita was exit and walked out into romes brilliant sunshine at trastevere station the bags under my eyes feeling heavier than the pack on my back.
I had some excellent instructions on how to get to my hotel however and set off... ok so i didnt have excellent instructions,.. in fact .. i had this map which looked reasonable if you have never been to rome,.. well it turned out to be a useless piece of crap.. and i didnt even notice when it blew out of my back pocket.. the map that is.
I circumnavigated Trastevere station which took approximately 45 minutes walk in full sun... yeah i love rome i was thinking... oooh what a great day... collected my thoughts and figured i would need a drink... go to the °bar° at the station and ask for a chinotto...
Asking for a chinotto in melbourne is responded to in one of two ways, °what the?° which means "I am sorry sir but we do not stock the item you requested" ... or "yes". in rome however, chinotto comes in various types and is presented in a number of different receptacles... so i had to go through this pointing exercise but finally got what i thought i wanted.
And then despite my hours of training,.. forgot that you pay at the cashier and not at the counter,.. anyway i think i walked into the only bar in rome where the owner doesnt have at least a rudimentary undrestanding of what theyt have been led to believe is english... i got a drink,.. i think it kept me alive...
I collected my trhoughts and headed back out the front of Trastevere station, i started to lose it,.. albeit in a really cool and interesting kind of way. Trams buses, ladies with prams, beggars (polite beggars) all started to whirl into a crazy cacophony with me in the middle and a shower and bed visible on the other side of a chasm... yeah and there were frogs in that chasm as well.. and everyone is scared of frogs... and they were croaking and all.
But the special powers of the chinotto plant kicked in, i saw a group of white cars arranged in some kind of weird circle as if they were taking part in a seance, I staggered towards them,.. an older man walks towards me and says ?‹taxi!?‹ i say ?‹siiiiiiiiiiiiii?‹ he says ?‹stanco eh??‹ i say aha... and mutter the name of my hotel... he says ?‹ah yes i take you straight there?‹ it wasnt literally around the corner, but it was literally around 3, the fare was 3,80 and in my stupor,..i didnt tip the guy, and even after i didnt tip him he carried my bag to the front desk and said thanks
But that failure to tip will come back and haunt me, taxi karma.. that's bad karma.
The rest of the day involves me showering and expresing deep feelings of love towards my bed and pillow and the comfort it provided,.. i don't think internet publishing laws in italy allow me to go any further... i slept for 12 hours from 3pm to am...
Oh i did manage to slip in an hour of late night Italian television... see this is why these people are so sensible,.. freely available soft porn,.. it has to be good for everyone.
Now the bulk of Tourists catch the express specifically designed train to take you direct to Termini station in central Rome.... but no... i like to do things differently,.. im not staying in central rome i am stayin in Trastevere, anybody who knows Rome will be oohing and ahhing about now... but that meant i had to catch the local °regionale°... i accomplished this and was feeling pretty proud of myself... even got off at the right station, remembered that uscita was exit and walked out into romes brilliant sunshine at trastevere station the bags under my eyes feeling heavier than the pack on my back.
I had some excellent instructions on how to get to my hotel however and set off... ok so i didnt have excellent instructions,.. in fact .. i had this map which looked reasonable if you have never been to rome,.. well it turned out to be a useless piece of crap.. and i didnt even notice when it blew out of my back pocket.. the map that is.
I circumnavigated Trastevere station which took approximately 45 minutes walk in full sun... yeah i love rome i was thinking... oooh what a great day... collected my thoughts and figured i would need a drink... go to the °bar° at the station and ask for a chinotto...
Asking for a chinotto in melbourne is responded to in one of two ways, °what the?° which means "I am sorry sir but we do not stock the item you requested" ... or "yes". in rome however, chinotto comes in various types and is presented in a number of different receptacles... so i had to go through this pointing exercise but finally got what i thought i wanted.
And then despite my hours of training,.. forgot that you pay at the cashier and not at the counter,.. anyway i think i walked into the only bar in rome where the owner doesnt have at least a rudimentary undrestanding of what theyt have been led to believe is english... i got a drink,.. i think it kept me alive...
I collected my trhoughts and headed back out the front of Trastevere station, i started to lose it,.. albeit in a really cool and interesting kind of way. Trams buses, ladies with prams, beggars (polite beggars) all started to whirl into a crazy cacophony with me in the middle and a shower and bed visible on the other side of a chasm... yeah and there were frogs in that chasm as well.. and everyone is scared of frogs... and they were croaking and all.
But the special powers of the chinotto plant kicked in, i saw a group of white cars arranged in some kind of weird circle as if they were taking part in a seance, I staggered towards them,.. an older man walks towards me and says ?‹taxi!?‹ i say ?‹siiiiiiiiiiiiii?‹ he says ?‹stanco eh??‹ i say aha... and mutter the name of my hotel... he says ?‹ah yes i take you straight there?‹ it wasnt literally around the corner, but it was literally around 3, the fare was 3,80 and in my stupor,..i didnt tip the guy, and even after i didnt tip him he carried my bag to the front desk and said thanks
But that failure to tip will come back and haunt me, taxi karma.. that's bad karma.
The rest of the day involves me showering and expresing deep feelings of love towards my bed and pillow and the comfort it provided,.. i don't think internet publishing laws in italy allow me to go any further... i slept for 12 hours from 3pm to am...
Oh i did manage to slip in an hour of late night Italian television... see this is why these people are so sensible,.. freely available soft porn,.. it has to be good for everyone.
Day 2 - Trastevere yeah yeah
I spent most of today in Trastevere, the place has me hooked.. it the cliched image of a narrow lane, a small dimly lit cafe at the bottom of a run down building, cobbled alley with garbage, cats, beggars and locals enjoying a frascati,.. family discussions flowing from the windows in the uppoer flors and washing strung on lines betwee the buildings... but its real and there is street after street of it just waiting to be seen. Alley after alleys spins into a web of discoveries and suddelny bursts forth onto a large piazza or a church, fountains with cool clear water.. its a dream
I got blissfully lost this morning, even though that meant long uphill walks past walled villas, there was just delight after delight and i literally stumbled across one of the best views in rome.. It was somewhere I had planned to go, but didnt think i was doing so just at that particular moment.. i hope to get some pics on here soon.
Walked to the vatican in the afternoon along the Tevere, San Pietro, it's all about magnitude, pictures can't capture it, you just feel small,... you are supposed to, it's very effective..
What impresses me more about all these ancient wonders are the fact that at the time of their construction there were so few people that would actually see them... today with easy access to affordable travel every wog and their dog has gone to the Trevi fountain and it is still magniicent,.. but 100 years ago and more,.. the magnitude ... thats what its all about, we can't capture that devotion today, no government could build a monument to equal these places, because they would be built knowing that millions of people from all over the world would visit it, places of such magnificence will never be built again.
No it aint federation square.
But why are there so many locals on the streets of rome flocking to piazzas and sipping drinks or just riding around on their vespas? Why cant we capture this same spirit in some of the communities we have in melbourne.. Fitzroy, Carlton, St Kilda,.. there is something missing. I guess it comes back to necessity, housing is cramped and cities arent allowed to sprawl as much as they can back home... people need the space and desire interaction with people who share their lifestyle,.. it's not climate, ours is comparable, it's not public works, our public transport, cleanliness etc surpass what I have seen here, there is a willingness to participate that we don't have in Australia, a spirit, a dare i say it - culture a feeling that you are a part of something and each person plays a special part in the tapestry of life, multicultural life as it's meant to be not as we have constructed it back home... there is an evolution a rapid evolution a vibrancy which we lack.
The afternoon was spent getting lost on the way back from the Vatican, not that good a lost this time, through baically residentlial new developments ... i walked the wrong down a very long alley and a man appeared before me.. i was wondering which newspaper would come to cover my murder, because i really like the fact that italian daily la repubblica has 2 b's... It turned out, in direct violation of my american guide book's suggestions, that he was there to help, i didn't understand a word he said but he got me back onto the road that lead to San Pietro and away from the dreaded roads that wind around the walled Villas... and when i say walls I'm not talking about a 5 foot red brick job,.. I'm talking 50 feet of granite...
I couldnt understand a word the guy said... I think he spoke italian but not any italian that I did... I bought him a beer at a place that was open even though we were at the ass end of May Day and stumbled back towards home.
One more detour took me across the river, in a half assed attempt to get to Trevi fountain before nightfall and make a day of it... i stumbled across Via Giulia a straight lane flanked by old houses, the odd embassy, a palazzio and a beautiful fountain covered in roses, I sat there to check my map when a large family on their afternoon passegiata walked past me, i didn't catch everything the protagonist of the family said but he looked at me and my map spinning between my hands and said... °Roma,.. via fontana,.. via la fontana... via la fontana° to which i replied... °si,.. via un altra fontana,.. via un altra altra fontana... via la due fontani° they laughed,.. the old lady that walked with them gave me a rose.
A Trastevere pizza, topped with sausage, cheese, tomato oven baked on an irregular shaped dough,.. i could taste the ash from the oven ended the day for me..
I spent most of today in Trastevere, the place has me hooked.. it the cliched image of a narrow lane, a small dimly lit cafe at the bottom of a run down building, cobbled alley with garbage, cats, beggars and locals enjoying a frascati,.. family discussions flowing from the windows in the uppoer flors and washing strung on lines betwee the buildings... but its real and there is street after street of it just waiting to be seen. Alley after alleys spins into a web of discoveries and suddelny bursts forth onto a large piazza or a church, fountains with cool clear water.. its a dream
I got blissfully lost this morning, even though that meant long uphill walks past walled villas, there was just delight after delight and i literally stumbled across one of the best views in rome.. It was somewhere I had planned to go, but didnt think i was doing so just at that particular moment.. i hope to get some pics on here soon.
Walked to the vatican in the afternoon along the Tevere, San Pietro, it's all about magnitude, pictures can't capture it, you just feel small,... you are supposed to, it's very effective..
What impresses me more about all these ancient wonders are the fact that at the time of their construction there were so few people that would actually see them... today with easy access to affordable travel every wog and their dog has gone to the Trevi fountain and it is still magniicent,.. but 100 years ago and more,.. the magnitude ... thats what its all about, we can't capture that devotion today, no government could build a monument to equal these places, because they would be built knowing that millions of people from all over the world would visit it, places of such magnificence will never be built again.
No it aint federation square.
But why are there so many locals on the streets of rome flocking to piazzas and sipping drinks or just riding around on their vespas? Why cant we capture this same spirit in some of the communities we have in melbourne.. Fitzroy, Carlton, St Kilda,.. there is something missing. I guess it comes back to necessity, housing is cramped and cities arent allowed to sprawl as much as they can back home... people need the space and desire interaction with people who share their lifestyle,.. it's not climate, ours is comparable, it's not public works, our public transport, cleanliness etc surpass what I have seen here, there is a willingness to participate that we don't have in Australia, a spirit, a dare i say it - culture a feeling that you are a part of something and each person plays a special part in the tapestry of life, multicultural life as it's meant to be not as we have constructed it back home... there is an evolution a rapid evolution a vibrancy which we lack.
The afternoon was spent getting lost on the way back from the Vatican, not that good a lost this time, through baically residentlial new developments ... i walked the wrong down a very long alley and a man appeared before me.. i was wondering which newspaper would come to cover my murder, because i really like the fact that italian daily la repubblica has 2 b's... It turned out, in direct violation of my american guide book's suggestions, that he was there to help, i didn't understand a word he said but he got me back onto the road that lead to San Pietro and away from the dreaded roads that wind around the walled Villas... and when i say walls I'm not talking about a 5 foot red brick job,.. I'm talking 50 feet of granite...
I couldnt understand a word the guy said... I think he spoke italian but not any italian that I did... I bought him a beer at a place that was open even though we were at the ass end of May Day and stumbled back towards home.
One more detour took me across the river, in a half assed attempt to get to Trevi fountain before nightfall and make a day of it... i stumbled across Via Giulia a straight lane flanked by old houses, the odd embassy, a palazzio and a beautiful fountain covered in roses, I sat there to check my map when a large family on their afternoon passegiata walked past me, i didn't catch everything the protagonist of the family said but he looked at me and my map spinning between my hands and said... °Roma,.. via fontana,.. via la fontana... via la fontana° to which i replied... °si,.. via un altra fontana,.. via un altra altra fontana... via la due fontani° they laughed,.. the old lady that walked with them gave me a rose.
A Trastevere pizza, topped with sausage, cheese, tomato oven baked on an irregular shaped dough,.. i could taste the ash from the oven ended the day for me..
Day 0 - Melbourne - Singapore - Frankfurt basically a day on bloody planes or around them or within the centres that cater for them
Most of you know that I am not petite,.. I am "rather large" so the prospect of sitting in confined space for some time is a bit hard to deal with. First leg was melbourne singapore, Thanks to the silent killer SARS. Iraq and all that othe good stuff the flight was empty .. i exchanged pleasantries with the guy sitting near me and enjoyed 7 hours of lounging around, empty seats everyplace... watched °adaptation° several more times,.. great movie ... glad it won zero oscars however.
Singapore wasn't quite as SARS crazed as i thought, lots of people wearing masks but not everyone.. As I already had my hospital mask pics taken back at Tullamarine i didn't bother donning it again for the benefit of the locals, who really wouldnt appreciate how funny I looked,
3 hours kicking around singapore airport,.. (they dont call it Changi quite as blatantly as they used to i noted)... is enough for anybody,.. so got back onto the singapore airlines flight for frankfurt.
Now i was supposed to fly direct to Rome, but singapore airlines in an effort to save people from the dangers of SARS had the great idea of dumping everyone onto the same flight (genius) and therefore cancelled the rome direct flight and moved us all, hosts and carriers alike... onto the Frankfurt flight..
The frankfurt flight was full,.. not a dry seat in the house...i sat opposite lots of lovely people of asian persuasion wearing masks... sat next to an interesting young german couple returning from 4 weeks in hospital in bali,.. turns out that they had a motorbike accident on their first day... so they had a great time!!! he deserved it .. she was nice.. dump him, dump him i say!!!!
12 hours and 30 minutes straight on a plane full of oddfellows... it was supposed to be 12 hours and five minutes but we had to go up hill a bit more than expected.
Frankfurt airport is a hole, don't go there,.. its sprawling as this makes german people feel more important,.. you get to have a good look at the planes that actually fly you around, trust me this isnt a good thing... dont fly Thai whatever you do, their plans are held together by recycled noodle boxes.
Sav had mentioned that I should count the dots at frankfurt airport,.. had i recalled this important tid bit of information i perhaps wouldnt have gone insane... alas... 2 hour wait, 1 hour delay, and the final leg to Rome on a bloody Lufthansa flight was underway.
The flight left at 10:30am so it was a °snack° that landed on my tray, here is the exchange
Lufthansa boy: You will be having of the snack?
ziz: yes i will be having of the snack?... i will also be reading of the newspaper
LB: reading of the newspaper?
ziz: yes reading of the newspaper
LB: reading of the newspaper?
Being the first time he had met me i let him off lightly, he probably didnt know that i am a lyrical gangsta and also didnt know that i had spent 28 hours on in or around planes...
ziz: yes please
LB hands me a newspaper... its german, i hand it back
LB looks at me
ziz: do you have an english paper?
LB an english paper?
ziz; yes an english paper
LB an english paper?
ziz ya un auslander newspaper fastunkerden
)i dont know what fastunkerden means but stevie b made the word up a few years ago.. it had the desired effect)
He brings me ... the financial times... If i had any stocks... i would know just how they were doing ... on April 12th, but i was sitting next to americans after all, so i appreciated his efforts.
We landed in Rome, and as per usual, my luggage was the absolute last to come out of the carousel, I'm standing there, just me and the odd sniffer dog rooting around the 1 or 2 abandoned bags spinning around the carousel,.. I'm standing there watching the little flashing light on the end of the conveyor belt that has delivered everyone else their sock and jocks... thinking "well this is grand".... and suddenly it appeared... plopped out the chute and sat there staring at me... it didnt look opened,.. but had it contained anything other than my undergarments I dont think I would have seen it again... obvioulsy nobody in the rome airport baggage handling department has a prefernce for XL sized mitch dowd cotton lycra boxers, fools.
The interesting outcome was that my luggage was so late,.... nobody was interested in my passport... so i dont actually exist,.. i can stay forever,.. but that's a lot.
Most of you know that I am not petite,.. I am "rather large" so the prospect of sitting in confined space for some time is a bit hard to deal with. First leg was melbourne singapore, Thanks to the silent killer SARS. Iraq and all that othe good stuff the flight was empty .. i exchanged pleasantries with the guy sitting near me and enjoyed 7 hours of lounging around, empty seats everyplace... watched °adaptation° several more times,.. great movie ... glad it won zero oscars however.
Singapore wasn't quite as SARS crazed as i thought, lots of people wearing masks but not everyone.. As I already had my hospital mask pics taken back at Tullamarine i didn't bother donning it again for the benefit of the locals, who really wouldnt appreciate how funny I looked,
3 hours kicking around singapore airport,.. (they dont call it Changi quite as blatantly as they used to i noted)... is enough for anybody,.. so got back onto the singapore airlines flight for frankfurt.
Now i was supposed to fly direct to Rome, but singapore airlines in an effort to save people from the dangers of SARS had the great idea of dumping everyone onto the same flight (genius) and therefore cancelled the rome direct flight and moved us all, hosts and carriers alike... onto the Frankfurt flight..
The frankfurt flight was full,.. not a dry seat in the house...i sat opposite lots of lovely people of asian persuasion wearing masks... sat next to an interesting young german couple returning from 4 weeks in hospital in bali,.. turns out that they had a motorbike accident on their first day... so they had a great time!!! he deserved it .. she was nice.. dump him, dump him i say!!!!
12 hours and 30 minutes straight on a plane full of oddfellows... it was supposed to be 12 hours and five minutes but we had to go up hill a bit more than expected.
Frankfurt airport is a hole, don't go there,.. its sprawling as this makes german people feel more important,.. you get to have a good look at the planes that actually fly you around, trust me this isnt a good thing... dont fly Thai whatever you do, their plans are held together by recycled noodle boxes.
Sav had mentioned that I should count the dots at frankfurt airport,.. had i recalled this important tid bit of information i perhaps wouldnt have gone insane... alas... 2 hour wait, 1 hour delay, and the final leg to Rome on a bloody Lufthansa flight was underway.
The flight left at 10:30am so it was a °snack° that landed on my tray, here is the exchange
Lufthansa boy: You will be having of the snack?
ziz: yes i will be having of the snack?... i will also be reading of the newspaper
LB: reading of the newspaper?
ziz: yes reading of the newspaper
LB: reading of the newspaper?
Being the first time he had met me i let him off lightly, he probably didnt know that i am a lyrical gangsta and also didnt know that i had spent 28 hours on in or around planes...
ziz: yes please
LB hands me a newspaper... its german, i hand it back
LB looks at me
ziz: do you have an english paper?
LB an english paper?
ziz; yes an english paper
LB an english paper?
ziz ya un auslander newspaper fastunkerden
)i dont know what fastunkerden means but stevie b made the word up a few years ago.. it had the desired effect)
He brings me ... the financial times... If i had any stocks... i would know just how they were doing ... on April 12th, but i was sitting next to americans after all, so i appreciated his efforts.
We landed in Rome, and as per usual, my luggage was the absolute last to come out of the carousel, I'm standing there, just me and the odd sniffer dog rooting around the 1 or 2 abandoned bags spinning around the carousel,.. I'm standing there watching the little flashing light on the end of the conveyor belt that has delivered everyone else their sock and jocks... thinking "well this is grand".... and suddenly it appeared... plopped out the chute and sat there staring at me... it didnt look opened,.. but had it contained anything other than my undergarments I dont think I would have seen it again... obvioulsy nobody in the rome airport baggage handling department has a prefernce for XL sized mitch dowd cotton lycra boxers, fools.
The interesting outcome was that my luggage was so late,.... nobody was interested in my passport... so i dont actually exist,.. i can stay forever,.. but that's a lot.
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